Category Archives: Bishop of Rome

Homosexual marriages took place in the ancient world—far more frequently and in greater numbers than religious reactionaries wish or allow themselves to admit. While the Bible is overwhelming with stories of incest, polygamy, wife-selling, and sexual irregularities among heterosexuals, there are few such declamations against same-sex couples that do exist (not just the accounts of David with Jonathan 2 Samuel 1:26: צַר־לִי עָלֶיךָ אָחִי יְהֹונָתָן נָעַמְתָּ לִּי מְאֹד נִפְלְאַתָה אַהֲבָתְךָ לִי מֵאַהֲבַת נָשִׁים׃).

Same-sex marriages have occurred in all cultures, at all times, and with support from various people and governments. They have been celebrated with ceremonies, family and public congratulations, toasts with wine and beer, and showers of gifts both practical and pleasurable.

Egyptian-couple Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep (tomb painting)

We have tomb paintings from the days of the pharaohs where same-sex couples’s co-habitation was celebrated as with the union of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep as found in the depiction of the two men in a warm embrace sharing a kiss in their tomb, known as the Tomb of the Two Hairdressers, in the necropolis at Saqqara, south of Cairo. There was no condemnation of same-sex marriages anywhere in the ancient Middle East until the invasion of the Akaddian mercenaries, known as the Apiru/Abiru. None of the recorded laws of Mesopotamia, including the Code of Hammurabi (on-line), contain restrictions against same-sex unions despite the fact that marriages are otherwise well-regulated. There were no laws, no prescriptions, no injunctions that marriage was for the purpose of procreation (as is found in Roman regulations) and “replenishing the earth”—although later Hebrews, distant in time and knowledge from the original text, would use that concept in declaring that people were to

Rhind Papyrus (ancient Egypt)

“multiply”—but not physically or sexually, but rather mentally and intellectually, as multiplication is not a part of any vocabulary until the middle of the Middle Ages (around the eleventh century, coming from India and the mathematics invented by a subcontinent respected mathematician by the name of Brahmagupta (598-670 CE) but found its origins in ancient Egypt.

Moscow Papyrus (fragment with additional conjectures)

The word used (multiply) that has been transmogrified into multiply actually was “increase” and meant to increase in wisdom and knowledge (Genesis 9:7: וְאַתֶּם פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ שִׁרְצוּ בָאָרֶץ וּרְבוּ־בָהּ׃ ס) where multiply in the original tongue is רָבָה and is the verb rahab from the original Assyrian rabû, meaning to become great (מִן) and compare things with a longing for wisdom, as in 1 Kings 5:10-12 (וַיְהִי חִירֹום נֹתֵן לִשְׁלֹמֹה עֲצֵי אֲרָזִים וַעֲצֵי בְרֹושִׁים כָּל־חֶפְצֹו׃ 11 וּשְׁלֹמֹה נָתַן לְחִירָם עֶשְׂרִים אֶלֶף כֹּר חִטִּים מַכֹּלֶת לְבֵיתֹו וְעֶשְׂרִים כֹּר שֶׁמֶן כָּתִית כֹּה־יִתֵּן שְׁלֹמֹה לְחִירָם שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה׃ ף 12 וַיהוָה נָתַן חָכְמָה לִשְׁלֹמֹה כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר־לֹו וַיְהִי שָׁלֹם בֵּין חִירָם וּבֵין שְׁלֹמֹה וַיִּכְרְתוּ בְרִית שְׁנֵיהֶם׃) and knowledge as in Daniel 12:4 where we read the word הַדָּֽעַת׃.

Juvenal on same-sex marriage

While Roman law is almost altogether lacking in formal processes for legal requirements, the fact that there are numerous mentions of same-sex weddings (although most appear as objects of ridicule and sport), there can be no doubt that they were common, and noted by Martial:

The only challenge seen to same-sex marriage was that the two people of the same gender who married could not have babies and thus continue their lineage. There is no record that I am aware of where same-sex couples adopted children, but there are references to children raised by same-sex people who have “settled into a single life”.

In the Greek world of antiquity, the same is true for same-sex relationships as it was in ancient Egypt. Plato’s Symposium describes instances of homosexual attraction and same-sex relationships in ancient Greece without condemnation. Over the centuries, Greece experienced an evolving cultural-religious basis for homosexual love and same-sex relationships based on ancient Greek theology.

Zeus and Ganymede (ancient Greek urn)

In ancient Greek theological works it is common to read about “same-sex exploits” by gods as high-ranking as Zeus who loved Ganymede. While modern artists focus more on Ganymede being a child, in reality he was a young man, as classical artists depicted.

Achilles mourning Patroclus

The epics of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, contain poetic passages that underscore homoerotic love between the military leaders of the Greek city states and others (Dynes, Wayne R. and Stephen Donaldson. 1992. Homosexuality in the Ancient World. New York, NY: Garland; Ishay, Micheline R. 2004. The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). In the Iliad the most poignant quasi-erotic story is the love felt by Patroclus, friend and lover to Achilles whose death unleashes Achilles’ wrath on Hector (Plato, Symposium 179-180; ref. Thornton, Bruce S. (1997). Eros: the Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 195-196).

Odysseus escapes from the Cyclops cave by hiding under a ram

There are numerous homosexual allusions in Homer’s Odyssey, as when Odysseus blinds Cyclops in his one eye with a lance, and then sneaks away with his men by riding underneath the Cyclops’ own rams (Homer, Odysseus, Book 9). The point is made that Odysseus selected the largest ram owned by the Cyclops for his journey from the cave.

Roman statesman Cicero documented legal rights of an individual within a same-sex marriage, but was later opposed to same-sex pursuits (Cicero, 1966, Tusculan Disputations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press , 407-415; to chase after someone defied conventions where mutual interest that was pleasant and unbounded by restrictions more acceptable—becoming the foundation for Etienne Montaigne’s work and his own pursuit of same-sex love; Badhwar, Neera K. “Friendship and Sexuality” in Soble, Alan (Ed., 2006). Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Sex.New York, NY: Greenwood Publishing Group). Female same-sex unions were less common—or at least there is a paucity of records, but this is because women enjoyed less freedom in their economic and social endeavors.

Ancient Roman talisman for marriage contract

No prescribed ceremonies or formalities of any kind were legally necessary in order to create a valid Roman marriage. First, the government did not have any sort of licensing procedure, nor did it even provide a means for registering marriages. In principle, therefore, marriage was largely a private arrangement occurring outside the purview of state authority, although, of course, the government reserved the right to declare supposed marriages null and void after the fact. Second, the Roman jurists and emperors alike also emphasize that no formality or marriage ceremony of any kind was required for a legal marriage. Indeed, not even cohabitation or sexual consummation was required (Eskridge, William N., Jr. “Symposium on Sexual Orientation and the Law.” Virginia Law Review. Vol 79.7 (October 1993): 1419-1513).

Such ceremonies were common as well in China and the area formerly known as Indochina and meet with approval within the community (Hinsch, Bret (1990). Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China. Reed Business Information, pp. 24-25). Same-sex marriages were equally blessed in ancient India and throughout the initial development of Hinduism, where the “union of two hearts” was far more important to the gods than the gender or sexual act (Vanita, Ruth. “‘Wedding of Two Souls’: Same-Sex Marriage and Hindu Traditions.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Vol 20.2 (Fall 2004): 119-135.)

Theodosian Code

Same-sex marriages in the Roman world were not officially declared illegal (with the realization that no children could be born to same-sex couples) until 342 CE/AD when the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans issued a law in the Theodosian Code (C. Th.9.7.3) prohibiting same-sex marriage in Rome and ordering execution for those so married. While the law was issued and signed, there are records that many civic leaders chose to ignore it, seeing it as a posturing to get the emerging church’s blessing and its force of arms and call for religious chaos as witnessed in the open defiance of the law and the strangle-hold of the Roman Catholic Church same-when two men, Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz.

Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz: Un Matrimonio Gay en la edad media

Díaz and Vandilaz married in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain on 16 April 1061. This fact is attested to by historic documents describing the official church wedding by a Roman Catholic priest (the documents were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova (for a discussion, in Spanish read here).

Diaz and Vandilaz were not alone in seeking and obtaining a marriage within the Roman Catholic Church. Ancient to medieval Church liturgical documents record ceremonies called “Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th centuries) and “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th centuries) are indicative of same-sex marriage. This lasted until the fourteenth century in Serbia and Slovenia.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae (Paris, 1667). We find the same sacramental blessing in the sixteenth century in St. John Lateran, the pope’s official parish church, as last as 1578. Lesbians continued to marry in Dalmatia as late as the eighteenth century.

The Jesus of the New Testament Gospels says nothing about (neither for nor against) same-sex marriages. His only activity was to change water into wine at a wedding in Cana, as marriage was a public festival for drinking to announce that two people agreed to live together. It does not say, anywhere in the Gospels, that the couple was neither heterosexual nor homosexual. As for Jesus’ attitude on marriage, that has no comment in the Constantine approved Gospels; all that is known is that Jesus never married (although a

Coptic fragment that reads: “Jesus said … my wife…” (4th century CE)

Coptic document in the fourth century does proclaim that he had a “wife” but at that time, the term “wife” could mean servant or “other”. Speculation is rising that the scroll was written to silence arguments that Jesus was gay since homosexuality and same-sex unions had been officially prohibited by the pagan Emperor Constantine I’s successors (outside of the emerging Constantine Church, there is not one contemporary record that suggests that Constantine converted to the religion he created out of sinews from the cult of Mithraism to the various faiths of the chrestianos and christianos that were enhanced with the pleasures of the gods Dionysius and the vita of Julius Cesar).

Ratzinger: pope and NAZI youth leader

Today, in the Vatican, where grown men wear long white, red, and black dresses with delicate lace and wear funny hats, as if they were coming-out transvestites or cross-dressers, hiding hatred for humanity beneath them, In an editorial this weekend, Vatican chief spokesman Father Federico Lombardi — fairy tale queen of

Of course this cross-dresser says nothing about the pontifical pandering and hiding of pedophile priests in the closets throughout the city that delights demoniacally as the smallest despotic nation in the world with its own currency, bank, ATM, and rowdy student population that heads into Rome for discotheques and beer.

Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has a long and rather sordid past. Pope Paul VI promoted Ratzinger to the cardinalate in 1977, even though he had little pastoral experience. In 1981, he settled in Rome when he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the Inquisition) and vowed to root out heresy and discipline “staying lambs”, and became one of John Paul II’s most influential advisors (Walsh, Mary Ann (2005). From Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI: an inside look at the end of an era, the beginning of a new one, and the future of the church. Lanham, MD and New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 135). Under Ratzinger, the modest reforms created by John XXIII were openly attacked, nuns were silenced, and candidates for bishoprics and the cardinalate were selected for their loyalty to the past and not their spiritual growth or desire to follow the Beatitudes in the Gospel. Ratzinger’s goal, once he became pope, has been to erase all visages of Vatican II and the legacy of Pope John XXIII. He is against any form of objective truth or moral truth and believes that Roman Catholics must follow the teaching of the Church blindly making him more dangerous to civilization than the self-flagellant Josemaria Escrivá and his mephistophlean Opus Dei that aims at world domination and elevation of Roman Catholicism as the only true religion.

Ratzinger has returned Latin to the Mass to calm conservatives (Gledhill, Ruth. “Pope set to bring back Latin Mass that divided the Church”The Times 11 October 2006; he accomplished this dark art on November 10, 2012, by establishing a special academy for it at the cost of millions while millions of starving and homeless Roman Catholics had their plight ignored). Far from a Holy Father, Ratzinger is an open censor, suspending the theologian Leonardo Boff of Concordia, Brasil, who has been known for his active support for the rights of the poor and excluded, having written his doctoral thesis (University of Munich, 1970), Die Kirche als Sakrament im Horizont der Welterfahrung, on how the Church can help the poor; that writing and his teaching raised the ire of a corrupt cardinalate determined to feed their own selfish interest. Boff opposed the Iraq War for Oil that was charged by Halliburton and its CEO: Vice President Dick Cheney, and considered George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon’s leadership to be similar to that of “fundamentalist terrorist states.”

Professor Leonardo Boff

Boff minced no words in his scathing criticism of despotic rulers in the Middle East, stating: “Those [emirs and kings] are despotic, they do not even have a constitution. Though extremely rich, they maintain the people in poverty” (the Portuguese is: “[Os USA] fizeram alianças espúrias com os emires e reis. Estes são despóticos, sequer possuem constituição. Embora riquíssimos, mantém o povo na pobreza.” When Boff attacked the wanton misuse of Church funds, Benedict silenced him and pushed further and fired other teachers who did not fall into line with his ideology that is closer to that of Hitler than of the New Testament Jesus. Benedict’s greatest crimes are his denial of relativity (that he claims is a “prison” since it denies the acceptance of “established truths”) and raising the long-disproven theory of absolutes; the German pope rejects science and evolution clinging desperately to the discredited theory of creationism that Stephen Hawking amply proved to be false (Hawking, Stephen (1990). A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York, NY: Bantom Books) when noting that gravity disproves the necessity of a divine being intervening in the development and expansion of the universe; to Benedict’s “prolific writings” that show a mere retelling and recopying of the works of others rather than a scholarly approach of research, investigation and formulation of new theses and theories, formulae and foundation stones on which to build. Disputation and discussion are silenced to the point that discussion and argument must be centered around past written and spoken thoughts of Father and Mothers (e.g. Hildegard of Bingen who was not even recognized as a saint at the beginning of 2012, and was better known for her 12th century mysticism and music (she was possibly a child chantress: Michael McGrade, “Hildegard von Bingen”, in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: allgemeine Enzyklopaldie der Musik,2nd edition, T.2, Vol. 8, ed. Ludwig Fischer. Kassel, Deutscheland and New York, NY: Bahrenreiter, 1994), and also had written

Illumination from the “Liber Scivias” showing Hildegard receiving a vision and dictating to her scribe and secretary

nearly 400 letters to correspondents ranging from Popes to Emperors to abbots and abbesses, a commentary on the gospel, two hagiographical works, and three great volumes of visionary theology: Scivias, Liber vitae meritorum (“Book of Life’s Merits” or “Book of the Rewards of Life”), and Liber divinorum operum (“Book of Divine Works”); critical editions of all three of Hildegard’s major works are in the Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis: Scivias in vols. 43-43A, Liber vitae meritorum in vol. 90, and Liber divinorum operum in vol. 92. She was a popular German writer in the Middle Ages, but no one considered her for sainthood (except in scattered congregations) or the rank of a doctor of the Church until contemporary culture looked past visions toward reality (Bennett, Judith M. and Hollister, Warren C. Medieval Europe: A Short History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), 317; critical editions of all three of Hildegard’s major works have appeared in the Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis: Scivias in vols. 43-43A, Liber vitae meritorum in vol. 90, and Liber divinorum operum in vol. 92); the last doctor (teacher) of the church was St. Thérèse of Lisieux (January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897) of France, died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 and was named a doctor of the church in 1997, by John Paul II, without any traditional credentials (her single work was The Story of a Soul, a collection of her autobiographical manuscripts consisting of poems, plays for the church, prayers and recorded conversations with her religious sisters–but again was a mystic) of the Church. According to Guy Gaucher,

Theresa of Lisieux

one of her autobiographers, “Thérèse fell victim to an excess of sentimental devotion which betrayed her. She was victim also to her language, which was that of the late nineteenth century and flowed from the religiosity of her age” (Guy Gaucher (1987). The Spiritual Journey of Therese of Lisieux, London, UK: Darton, Longman and Todd, p.2). Hildegard, like Thérèse, have more in common with illusions passed as mysticism than with any form of concentrated study that could better the world, as Boffs provided and was censured for. Their primary focus was on the Mother of God and Child, more in keeping with the worship of Isis (the original Θεοτοκος or Theotokos: birth giver/god bearer) and Horus of ancient Egypt than any legitimate tracts on the first century CE that did not accord Mary any significant place other than being the human mother of a mortal Jesus (only the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke describe Mary as a virgin (Greek παρθένος, parthénos) while others remain silent). Mark names her only once (6:3) and John never mentions her by name nor accords her a special place in the narrative of the Jesus of the New Testament. In Luke’s Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Mary and the “brothers of Jesus” (indicating that Mary was

Isis and Baby Horus / Mary and Baby Jesus (Theotokos)

not “ever virgin”) are mentioned in the company of the eleven who are gathered in the upper room after the ascension but only the elder brother James has any significant role in the community. Mary’s assumed role can be dated further back to the various virgin Venuses that symbolized fecundity and fertility as the source of life and thus gods in their own right frequently surplanting male deities.

Hildegard gained the stature of being a Mother of the Church on October 7, 2012, as she found her inspiration in the Mother of Christ and saints–a common medieval movement that returns to the Great Mother of the Waters in pagan Germany who promised visions to her worshippers. To this end “Marriage and the family are not in fact a chance sociological construction, the product of particular historical and financial situations. On the other hand, the question of the right relationship between the man and the woman is rooted in the essential core of the human being and it is only by starting from here that its response can be found”–not a word that is empirically proven. From from the antiquated and amusing humor of Benedict’s defense of “the family as being God-created”, Chris Brickell (who prefers to use David Halperin’s word “historicism” rather than social constructionism) and other sociologists (cp. Farber, Bernard (1982) “Systematic Generation of Theory in Family Sociology ” (1982). The Sociological Quarterly23 (Autumn):427-454; cf. Bernardes, Jon (1988). “Whose ‘family’? A note on ‘The changing sociological construct of the family’”. The Sociological Review (May) 267-277; the entire issue is defined by the American Sociological Association) have repeatedly showing the evolution and devolution of the family in social contexts, showing that Benedict is not only against the rigorous requirements of science but of all educational fields. All of the writings and pontificating are more appropriate for the tenth century than for the twenty-first century and mark an attempt to return to the Dark Ages of Superstition and division among people, a scenario of terror hailed by conservatives and neo-conservatives who reject advances in any discipline and who long for the days bygone of absolutes and the arguably offensive innovation of infallibility of dogma.

Rod Dreher

Following the inanity of American conservatives who lament the possible future where brothers and sisters marry and have sex (Rod Dreher in The American Conservative)—while ignoring that in the Bible it was a common practice as when Abraham took his sister Sarah for his wife (Genesis 20:12) and then sold her twice (first to the Egyptian pharaoh, then to Abimelech) as a whore to raise capital and gain flocks of animals; Jacob married his first cousins constituting incest (Genesis 26-29), etc. as there is not one word in the Torah, Prophets of Gospels that state whom can marry who or for what reason. Marriage has never been about 1 man + 1 woman in any religious or historical literature.

Dreher demonstrating his own lack of biblical knowledge and the devolving church says nothing about the 38 popes who had wives (as was common among the Apostles in the Gospels: ref. Matthew 8:14-15; Luke 4:38-39; 1 Corinthians 9:5; 1 Timothy 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6; etc), or the 13 popes who had male lovers with one raising his boyfriend up to the cardinalate then issuing torrents of tart tears of dismay when his bedfellow danced naked and had sex

Father Benedict Groeschel argued that children “seduced” priests into sex

with other cardinals. There is more pedophile activity, hunger, anger, rivalry, struggle for attention and absence of basic needs (education, affection, medical attention, etc.) in polygamous families than there are in same-sex/monogamous parented families as is proven statistically and in psychological studies. There is as much sexual depravity in the Bible as there is in the odiously opportunistic government of Uganda urged on by Scott Lively and whoring leaders who are more wretched than any Jezebel in the Bible, yet sit in judgment of the people they pretend to govern. It is past time for all foreign humanitarian and other forms of aid be withheld from this nation, and the nation boycotted.

Roman Catholic Council of American bishops have condemned universal health care and USA democracy, reject the rights of women and moving the nation backward in time.

The most despicable crimes remain within totalitarian religions: Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Missouri Lutheran Synod, and the Mormon (LDS) churches leading the way with a raw and rigid fundamentalism, the denial of equality between the sexes, the rejection of equal opportunity and choice, with the greatest hatred coming from the American Council of Roman Catholic Bishops and the Peru Council of Roman Catholic Bishops that now is rivaled by the bishops of the Mormon faith, especially the thundering of one-time Massachusetts Governor and Mormon bishop Willard (Mitt) Romney.

NAZI youth leader Joseph Ratzinger in the Roman Catholic Church

While the seemingly brain-dead German pope Josef Ratzinger prattles on about defending the fantasy family framed in his illusions as being real, the Vatican demands that families where there is spousal and child abuse, incest, hatred and loathing remain together. Despite the solecisms and draconian blustering BS of the predatory pontiff, Europe has the good sense to legalize same-sex marriages in most Roman Catholic and Protestant/ neutral countries: Spain, Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, and even in Roman Catholic Poland (the Uganda of the north) where right-wing Roman Catholic hoodlums are out to exterminate Jews, end abortion and same-sex marriages (only 17% approved of same-sex marriage in 2005 but that has increased while 76% disapproved and that has decreased despite the denunciations of the pedophile priests pressed into pulpits to issue their sermons of hatred. The archaic and antihuman chant against “liberals”, as it has been in every dictatorship from Chile to Peru (and its pathetic prelate Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne who denies any attempt at self-determination among the impoverished Peruvian people, with priests attempting to better the lot of the poor and disenfranchised), Burma to Poland waging conflict among their own people over individual rights, human dignity and civil charters, with archaic

Polish skinheads demonstrate against democracy and for return of Inquisition or NAZIs

chants “Wybieram życie” (Choose Life), and “Europa normalnych rodzin” (Europe for normal families)—homosexuality continues and is recognized by every medical and psychological association of doctors on this planet as normal (it occurs regularly), and natural (it exists in all species around the world), yet there is a sense that the nation must catch up with the rest of the world, with support for same-sex marriages growing each year (read here, in Polish, cp. here, pp. 36-39, in Polish). Milan’s Cardinal Martini meticulously voiced in an interview shortly before his death that the Roman Catholic Church was outdated by no less than 200 years.

Ratzinger should retire, be arrested and stand trial for crimes against humanity, the least of which is his abuse of human rights for the LGBT community. Ratzinger either has never studied the original texts or prefers the lies of the past in condemning same-sex love and marriage that was a force in the reformed Jewish communities before Constantine I created is “catholic [universal] church” in 325 CE, as the word “homosexual” appears in no Bible before 1954, as it is not even invented until the mid-nineteenth century.

Codex Sinaiticus Syriacus dating from the 5th century

The Vatican, obviously, has only enshrined the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sianiaticus (written 1600 years ago, there was no earlier Bible), but never read either of the two bibles that the Arian bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius, wrote for the Roman emperor. To claim that there was any Bible before Eusebius is a church lie; the Emperor Constantine I burned all copies of any religious literature he did not approve during his Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.

Religion is a destructive and totally negative force in life as defined by all official “Church Fathers”, Protestant leaders, and emerging Muslim clerics. John Calvin wrote: “We cannot think of ourselves as we ought to think without utterly despising everything that may be supposed an excellence in us. This humility is unfeigned submission of a mind overwhelmed with a weighty sense of its own misery and poverty; for such is the uniform description of it in the word of God [i.e. the Bible]. (Johannes Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1928), p. 681.)

The Calvinist faith, like the all Protestant religions, birthed in the sixteenth century, was a revision of the hell-fire and brimstone theology of the Roman Catholic Church that was dragged into the world 1200 years earlier. The scattered closed communities of the followers of the Jesus captured in the numerous gospels–before they were decreed and canonized as four–had no need of anger or debasement. With Constantine I at Nicaea, everything changed for the worse with horror and fear replacing peace and hope.

Threats of torments (200 BCE – 285 CE) a part of most world religions as pictured in this mosaic

Everything was bad in this world, and in this environment that mortals lived, people were plagued with temptations and anger. All they could do was waiting impatiently for a better world (a “world to come” (עולם הבא) a term or phrase that appears nowhere in the Hebrew Bible)–promised, but one that never would come (Matthew 12:32, Hebrews 2:5, both written more than one generation after the Jesus of the New Testament had, according to various gospels, died). Antecedents stem from older hieroglyphic writing and cuneiform inscription and are directed toward marginalized people as well as individuals who are seen as “opposing the will of god” or “defying the ruler” who usually was the same authority figure.

Acts of faith? Self-flagellation before crucifixion in The Philippines (2012 CE)

It was the impact of thinking of perdition, rejection, and self-abasement that made people willing to die in the folly of religious wars and suffer various forms of martyrdom in body and spirit as well as mind from enduring church-sanctioned torture of the Inquisition to self-flagellation and crucifixion—giving over to the terrorist tactics of ecclesiastical eunuchs preying for misery who determined rubrics of ritual and righteousness. With this hortatory hounding by the dogs of faith, the psychology of man was cannibalized carnivorously. The strength of good intention was left circumspect for others to glean fruit from with ritualistic rapiers and capture and mutilate the essence of the original thinker.

John Calvin (Tyrant of Geneva)

John Calvin (French: Jean Calvin, born Jehan Cauvin: 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564), being trained as a humanist lawyer found his faith uncertain. Wide fluctuations in the faith gave little stability to a man whose mind was fixated on absolutes. He broke from the Roman Catholic Church in 1530, and causing an uprising by denouncing the religion of his parents, fled to Switzerland where he attempted to set up a Kingdom of God—a belief that many shared hoping that the Jesus of the New Testament would return to the water planet Earth with a sword to kill unbelievers (Matthew 10:34).

Michael Servetus (drawing c. 1509-1511)

To this end, Calvin, when he took over the canton of Geneva, agreed with the murder of Michael Servetus (also known as Miguel Servet, Miguel Serveto alias Revés, or Michel de Villeneuve and in Spanish as Miguel Serveto Conesa). Servetus was born 29 September? 1509 or 1511 and was executed for questioning the existence of the Trinity, as he could not find Biblical evidence of this novel idea that originated in ancient Egypt, on 27 October 1553. Servetus was an Aragonese cartographer, physician and theologian, but most damning to his contemporaries was that he was neither a loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church nor a believer in many of the pagan innovations within the Roman Catholic faith as he had become a Renaissance humanist who put mortals before mythology. For this the Roman Catholic Church and all existing Protestant sects determined that he had to die.

Calvinist text used in Colonial New England schools

Vilifying Servetus was easy for Calvin who seldom had a kind word for anyone. Calvin was determined that he would be recognized as a priest of a god similar to the ones his parents had worshiped–but without the trappings of Rome and the papacy. To accomplish this feat, Calvin revamped the concept of education, taking it backward in time, rejecting research and exploration, and identical to the Taliban (the singular is talib and must be translated as a theological student or a student at a religious Islamic school: طالبان . Initially they were Afghans of Aghanistan–until 1993. After 1993, the rigid Calvinistic-like religion of Muslim Taliban students of the Qur’an spilled over into Pakistan and spread like a noxious virus throughout the Muslim world with the primary purpose to keep the sexes separated–a goal of Calvin in his schools, and like Calvin stop the enjoyment of music, arts, and refined clothing). Calvinists modified some of their austerity, but not the Taliban of the twentieth and twenty-first century who commanded that learning be based on and around and on the Qur’an as Calvin had demanded that his version of education be centered on the Protestant Bible and the articles of faith that he invented and wrote down to be printed.

Calvin’s adoption of faith was unique inasmuch as he was the center of that faith, although he always demurred before the godhead as the absolute sovereign. His faith was monarchical without a shred of democracy anywhere–a prototype for evangelical extremists of today. Calvin mused on his own “conversion”—giving two different accounts in conflict with one another. Later in his life, John Calvin wrote two different accounts of his conversion that differ in significant ways. In the first account he portrays his conversion as a sudden change of mind, brought about by God. This account can be found in his Commentary on the Book of Psalms: “God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness, I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogether leave off other studies, yet I pursued them with less ardour” (Calvin, J[ohn] J. Calvin, preface to Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James Anderson, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1948), pp. xl–xli).

In his second account he speaks of a long process of inner turmoil, followed by spiritual and psychological anguish. He wrote: “Being exceedingly alarmed at the misery into which I had fallen, and much more at that which threatened me in view of eternal death, I, duty bound, made it my first business to betake myself to your way, condemning my past life, not without groans and tears. And now, O Lord, what remains to a wretch like me, but instead of defence [sic], earnestly to supplicate you not to judge that fearful abandonment of your Word according to its deserts, from which in your wondrous goodness you have at last delivered me” (Gordon, Bruce (2009). Calvin. New Haven, CT; London, England: Yale University Press, p. 34.) The difference between the accounts strongly suggests that the epiphany was over a period of years, as contended by Ganoczy, Alexandre (1966) in his book Le Jeune Calvin. Genèse et evolution de sa vocation réformatrice, Wiesbaden, Germany: F. Steiner, p. 302. He argues that Calvin conversion took place over several years and that it was not a biographical or chronological event. Many factors played a role: economic, social, family, and personal desires both mental and physical.

Rejecting oneself as “each person is a sinner and evil” requires separating the genders to avoid temptation.

By despising the self as Calvin chortled, the mind impoverished itself by failing to strike out and learn that which was forbidden or prohibited by clerics thriving fat on the ignorance of their followers. Religion became a new form of authoritarianism, and the gods of each ontology became the symbol of power and force that shadowed the denizens of despair and death of individuality.

Priests, bishops, and the pope or patriarch of Orthodoxy became the sacrosanct soothsayers for deities clouded in marble and painted on wood, with saints who had been ancient gods clustered around them in whittled or chiseled relief. The Führer—the beloved “father of his people” since 374 BCE—became the temporal overlord and determined everything from whom had sex with who and at what time (with the overlord frequently claiming the “right of first night” (droit du seigneur or jus primae noctis is found only in the literature of the 13th to 16th century in Europe, but there are no written laws or statutes that exist today to prove its authenticity, and is sourced only to the epic of Gilgamesh in 1900 BCE) to know that the woman was a virgin before handing her over to a waiting bridegroom), what was eaten by whom, what hours were worked, what taxes were collected, and when belfry bells tolled tidings that thought was to be forsaken, the individual self was to merge into a sterilized community of like-thinkers, and all pawns and serfs would grovel their way to the churches supported by flying buttresses as if the arms of each were holding up the roof so that the unseen god could perch like a bird and listen to praises of his divine name since he was uncertain if mortals truly knew his magnificence and glory.

The gods of the past were never strong enough to protect themselves. They required spiritual warriors who would pick up swords and later shoulder guns to fight in defense of the names that mortals gave the deities to assure that conformity was (frequently masqueraded as with the Moors of fifteenth century Spain) devotion.

Caravansarai, ca. first half of 8th century BCE. Drawing on a potsherd of Yahweh and the goddess Asherah and her consorts (she would ultimately marry Yahweh).

The young calf nursing at the teat of the great cow became the Yahweh of future generations, and the bastard son of a young girl would be sacrificed on a poll in imitation of the would-be slaughter of another youth who was tied to an altar to prove his devotion to a god (Genesis 22:1-12, where the Jews claimed the youth was Isaac; in Islam, it is Ishmael, the first born of Hagar: Qur’an XXXVII: 100-107; the story is found in many ancient Semitic cultures including early Babylonia and Minæn) all became beams holding up the decaying timber supporting air that was the heart of religions. The gods in each tale were not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, nor unique. They were much like the great Arabian desert barbarian would punch his seven year-old bride in the chest for mirth and pleasure and laugh at her anguish and horror (Qur’an Sahih Muslim 4:2127).

Inbred into this are the false submission of matter or holy books over mind and the conduct of free inquiry that furthers the enslavement of the thought process behind a prison of contrived regulations and rules, commandments and pronouncements from pontiffs and pastors who demand uniform submission to the word of their particular god(s) (Erich Fromm (1941). Escape from Freedom. New York, NY: Farrer & Rinehart, p. 441 f). The surrendering of personal prerogatives and rights to another is a sign of insecurity and masochism. Self-renunciation was adopted by many as a means of pain, but by rejecting reality lead and continues to lead people into an unnatural world and a breakdown of human consciousness as pleasure and pain that are both motivators for the individual, like aging, agony and other normal experiences including death (that must be accepted as a part of living) leads to additional neurosis and further complicates adjustment to self and society (ref. Maudsley, Henry (1902), “Pain–life–death” in Life in mind & conduct: Studies of organic in human nature (pp. 394-435). London, Great Britain: Macmillan and Co. xv, 444 p).

John Wycliff (14th century) celebrated pain as surrender to god.

The antithesis of these mortal-created religions is humanism. Humanism centers on the individual and the individual’s strength of mind, purpose, and being. A strict code or list of prohibitions of what can be read, studied, or done limits the individual and the individual’s growth toward personal self- actualization and contribution to society as a whole. This idea was repugnant to Wycliffe (14th century translator of the Bible into English, and theologian), Calvin, Luther and other reformers, as well as the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, repeating the actions of the ultra-orthodox Jews who argued that life was a testing ground to show the individual’s worthiness for eternal life and to win the favor and forgiveness of the “fearful Lord” who was supreme judge and one who would cast the non-repentant into Hell to experience eternal damnation.

Modern psychology sides with the early humanist movement, but goes further. The individual, alone, develops a sense of power of reason, first to understand the self, then to comprehend those people near and far. Truth is realized as limited, both in understanding the limitations on the self as well as the potentialities of the self, and reaches out to others in solidarity and friendship.

With the hand extended forward, not raised up in salute to violence as used in ancient Rome, the Second and Third Reich, or to invoke the despicable image of a means of torture, be it pillar, pole, or cross, the mind realizes strength and does not recede into a learned sense of powerlessness and subjection. Virtue becomes self-realization and self-actualization, not groveling in obedience to the whim or will of another: parent, sibling, teacher, governor, religious leader or would-be god of a cult.

Faith is not a memorized or read from catechisms or other holy texts of a brand or branch of theology. Faith is internal and separate from sectarianism and sadism. Instead, the certainty of one’s conviction based upon experience of thought and action by the body attuned with nature that is the divine brings enlightenment and knowledge of the self and the rights of others.

The epiphany that a person experiences when he or she discovers the inward self arrives with joy and renewed quest for additional knowledge, not labored under a whip and chain plied to the torn skin in a frenzy of self-flagellation as was the custom of Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer who beat himself severely until his bathroom was anointed with his blood in a feigned sense of religiosity to purge his vile and venal thoughts of the flesh of young women in his quest to understand and create cult-practices in an elitist movement known as Opus Dei in the name of a false sanctity. There are many priests, especially in Opus Dei, who justify, defend, and encourage physical mortification and abuse of the body, citing” “I pommel my body and subdue it” (1 Corinthians 9:27), but it is translated in Catholicism’s New American Bible as “I drive my body and train it” referencing to a spiritual, not physical, exercise. It is the same with the Opus Dei credo that mistranslates other words of the legendary Saul of Tarsus: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24). The Opus Dei affirmations (read here and here and here being a call to give up personal values, interests, growth, and identity: read here) gave rise to Dan Brown’s historically accurate (although, as far as I know, there are no albinos in the mummery at least at this time) book The DaVinci Code (Brown, Dan (2003). The DaVinci Code. New York, NY: Doubleday) that is a measured account of the secretive organization, and its practice of self-flagellation that even Pope John Paul II practiced regularly. Mortification of the body through starving, thirsting, or flagellation serves no good and causes paranoid behavior. Many times such paranoia arises, especially among older people, who see personal physical abuse as tantamount to being in a war zone: this time an eternal war between good and evil. Psychologists have studied post-traumatic stress disorders especially among those returning from war fronts that the sufferer equates as being in a near Armageddon situation, and finds it difficult to relate to the traditional family or a more conventional life-style. The perceived evils of the earth and people on the planet are seen as being near to devils, and only by mortification can the PTSD find release from presumed entrapment (ref. Roberts, William R.; Penk, W. E.; Gearing, M. L.; Robinowitz, R.; Dolan, M. P.; Patterson, E. T. (1982). “Interpersonal problems of Vietnam combat veterans with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.” doi. 10.1037/0021-843X.91.6.44. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 91(6), Dec 1982, 444-450).

Mortification and harm to the body is the sign of mental illness, and those who practice it out what they consider to be religious zeal, are excusing their masochism under the guise of religiosity. Masochism is the surrender to a dominant authority, and when the authority is one in religion, the religion becomes a god by itself and the individual surrenders personal identity and individual growth. Masochists seek to atone for transgressions by accepting abuse of any nature by anyone in a position of authority, especially in religion (ref. Inbar, Yoel; Pizarro, David A.; Gilovich, Thomas; Ariely, Dan (2012). “Moral Masochism: On the Connection Between Guilt and Self-Punishment.” doi: 10.1037/10029749. Emotion, September 17). If the one being punished is attacked by the religious authority, the victim sees himself or herself as being a surrogate for the artificial Christ in Mel Gibson’s fantasy “The Passion of Christ” (ref. Hoffman, Thomas (2005). “Freud and Gibson: ‘A child is being beaten’ and the Passion of Christ”. doi: 10.1037/0736-9735.22.1.107. Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 22(1), 2005, 107-112). Such actions, especially being the subject of abuse or mortification, frequently are surrogates for repressed sexual desires, and lead to unbalanced thinking and the rejection of self-actualization and give way to masochistic fantasies and frequently have masochistic-themed dreams (cf. Silverstein, Judith L. (1994). “Power and sexuality: Influence of early object relations.” doi: 10.1037/h0079513. Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 11(1), 33-46; cp. Bears, Michael; Cartwright, Rosalind; Mercer, Patricia (2000). “Masochistic dreams: A gender-related diathesis for depression revisited.” doi: 10.1023/A:10094800907418. Dreaming, Vol 10(4), December, 211-219).

Giles Tremlett of The Guardian

Escrivá is a prime example of the Janus complex of faith, as detailed by British journalist Giles Tremlett, who wrote: “biographies of Escrivá have produced conflicting visions of the saint as either a loving, caring charismatic person or a mean-spirited, manipulative egoist” (Giles Tremlett, “Sainthood beckons for priest linked to Franco“, The Guardian (UK), 5 October 2002). French historian Édouard de Blaye concurred with Tremlett’s analysis noting that Escrivá was a “mixture of mysticism and ambition” (Blaye, Edouard de. (1976), Franco and the Politics of Spain, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, p. 262). All

Escrivá with Pope John XXIII

biographers have noted that Escrivá labored to be a part of the world and exercise the strengths that he and his discipleship had, but remained torturously tied to Roman Catholicism that unleashed the schizophrenia in his mind, as Spanish architect Miguel Fisac, who was one of the earliest members of Opus Dei who remained close to Escrivá for nearly twenty years before breaking with him and Opus Dei, gave in his summation–a very different picture of Escrivá than what John Paul II wanted the public to read.

Miguel Fisac

Fisac painfully detailed the obscure mentality of what many considered to be a pious man who in secluded times and places and even at times in public was a vain, secretive, and ambitious man, given to private displays of violent temper. Fisac wrote that this split personality lead the self-sacrificed soul to demonstrate or offer little charity towards others or genuine concern for the poor who he claimed he served and loved (Fisac, Miguel (1992). “Nunca le oí hablar bien de nadie”, in Escrivá de Balaguer – ¿Mito o Santo? (Madrid: Libertarias Prodhufi). Using this criteria, neither Escrivá nor John Paul II would qualify as saints.

While many theists attempt to make humanism a theology, it is not. Humanism glorifies the magnificence of mortals and what they do for others, their community, and the world, for whom a god is not necessary. When this is the case any and all gods are ignored along with the various strains of theology that support deities. At the same time, while not wishing to waste moments speculating on that which cannot be known or determined scientifically, humanists do not preoccupy their time with speculation for or against the existence of such a being as a god. Like Stephen Hawking, the true humanist concentrates on what can be determined and see in such wondrous evolutionary epochs as the unrecorded time of the Big Bang, the emergence of black holes that consume stars and universes, and the unabridged expansion of the universe (Stephen W. Hawking (1990). A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York, NY: Bantam Books; I am using the Spanish edition: Historia del Tiempo del Big Bang a los Agujeros Negros (trans. Miguel Ortuño, esp. p. 180-181, chapter 8 as the English edition is not available here).

“God” is but a symbol of the powers of the individual. It is the individual who creates god, not god creates the mortal.

Stephen Hawking and Benedict XVI

Even though Pope John Paul II warned the renowned astrophysicist and Cambridge scholar not to research too deeply into the origins of the universe, the professor ignored the pontiff and continued his investigation–upsetting many in the Roman Catholic and other religious communities (read here and here). Hawking quoted the pope as saying, “It’s OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God.” Later, Hawking noted, no god was necessary to start the universe or anything within it. Gravity and collision did that. Hawking found a slightly more cordial greeting with Benedict XVI. No friend of “modernism” nor liberty of the individual and individual thought, Benedict XVI, who has been charged with crimes against humanityat the World Court at the Hague, leagued with royalty as had past popes to silence dissent as with

Baroness Warsi meets Pope Benedict XVI (Photo: EYEVINE)

Baroness Warsi (the first female Muslim Cabinet member in the UK and leader of the Conservative Party who gave the Ratzinger a Qur’an) who has criticized the writings and speeches of Richard Dawkins and others.

The German pope has come out against those who differ with him, and demands obedience in all things, including the closure of schools and societies (such as the Society of St. Pius X), and has written a book on the infancy of Jesus–for which there are no historical records but is conjured from old myths and pseudo-apocrypha secreted in questionable Pseudepigrapha. The German pope also wants to restore the Latin Mass (that had kept millions of people away from the worship service and sent millions more seeking a more modern responsive church) and a free standing altar (that permits priests to face the people), use of pop[ular] music and guitars, and banishing women from actively participating in the rites and rituals of the church and silence opponents, especially gifted scholars and researchers like Hans Küng who criticized the pope as isolated and out of touch with reality as did Cardinal Martini of Milan who told reporters that the Roman Catholic Church is 200 years out-dated; Küng furthermore accused Pope Benedict of direct responsibilty for “engineering the global cover-up of child rape perpetrated by priests“, and others who are still entitled to opinions no matter how wrong they are when faced with facts (cf. Küng, Hans (2007). Umstrittene Wahrheit. München, Deutschland: Piper, and Kung, Hans (1988). Theologie im Aufbruch: eine okumenische Grundlegung. München, Deutschland: Piper).

Benedict XVI crusades for a return to a pre-Vatican II church

Benedict’s attacks on free and universal education, secular education, and definition of who is qualified to teach further limits individual choice, the ability to conduct research unhampered, and the degradation of scholarly debate ending individual intellectual advances. It is tantamount to returning to the days when the Roman Catholic Church tried Galileo for affirming the thesis of Copernicus, and marks the current pontificate as a return to the Dark Ages when god ruled cruelly over all people as a tyrant and not a benefactor or protector.

Hesiod: Theogony

Benedict uses outdated theology yet expects total conformity to what he has ordained as definitive, silencing dissent. Even the ancient Greeks recorded that the gods were created by mortals (Hesiod, Theogony). Socrates did not believe in any god, but visited the Oracles as required by law–before Athens City Council demanded he die: drinking hemlock, on the charge of insulting the gods.

Mortals create gods to explain what they are too lazy to discover for themselves. It is the irresponsibility of mortals, like most students who do not enjoy reading or read for knowledge, to seek the easiest escape from having to think. Most people want a job with the least work, like students who do as little as possible to obtain recognition (a degree or a position). What is sought is immediate gratification that is sought out not a long-term enlightenment. This occurs because teachers do not challenge students sufficiently. Teachers do not constantly demand questions and answers from their charges for fear of dismissal, yet demand that their students pass rigorous state-sponsored examinations without having learned the information required. This is the modus operandi of organized religion: follow others, do not question, just obey. Blind obedience by indoctrination is stifled propagandization and it is child abuse, regardless if the indoctrination is done by parent, teacher who makes a major impact on a student as the teacher is seen as the fountain of knowledge and corrupt the learning process (cf. Torrance, E. Paul; Mason, Raigh (1958). “Instructor effort to influence: An experimental evaluation of six approaches.”doi: 10.1037/hoo47830. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 49(4), Aug 1958, 211-218 and Torrance, E. Paul; Mason, Raigh (1958). “Instructor effort to influence: An experimental evaluation of six approaches.” doi:10.1037/h0047830. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 49(4), August, 211-218), military leader (Johnson, W. Brad; Wilson, Ken (1993). “The military internship: A retrospective analysis.” doi.10.1037/0735-7028.24.3.312. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 24(3), August, 312-318) especially when it is covert racism or pits race against its own ethnicity (Loo, Chalsa M.; Singh, Karam; Scurfield, Ray; Kilauano, Bill (1998). “Race-related stress among Asian American veterans: A model to enhance diagnosis and treatment.” doi:10.1037/ 1099-9809.4.2.75. Cultural Diversity and Mental Health, Vol 4(2), 75-90), clergy, or others to insure conformism (Kuenzli, Alfred (1952). “Conformism in Contemporary Psychology.” doi:10.1037/h0053921. American Psychologist, Vol 7(10), Oct 1952, 594-595). Collective (or group) indoctrination, especially in the case of religion, can lead to selective or collective suicides, murders, rapes, and other acts of violence in times of conflict, war, and doctrinal disputations (Grimland, Meytal; Apter, Alan; Kerkhof, Ad (2006). “The phenomenon of suicide bombing: A review of psychological and nonpsychological factors” doi:10.1027/0227- 5910.27.3.107. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, Vol 27(3), 107-118).

Many students remain mere shadows of what potential they could have and become if they furthered the advance of their mind and worked to better their civilization by rejecting old gods and worn-thin truths to be responsive to new ideas and arguments. Students at every age are eager to obtain a score that is recognizable and laudable, but few students have the willingness (although many do have the capacity) to study independently, read broadly and thoroughly, write copiously, and question authority. This is a reality learned as small children tied to priest, pastor, rabbi, mullah or other authority figures in the world’s religions as it is easier to memorize and repeat that which is expected than to proffer new concepts and dispute established facts. Unfortunately leaders are seldom (if ever) examined for leadership qualities and sound psychology, as seen with the election of the last two popes and the first two presidents of the USA, most South American nations (especially in Perú), or prime ministers in the UK, in the 1980-1990 period (cp. Lambert, Lisa Schurer; Tepper, Bennett J.; Carr, Jon C.; Holt, Daniel T.; Barelka, Alex J. (2012). “Forgotten but not gone: An examination of fit between leader consideration and initiating structure needed and received.” doi: 10.1037/a0028970. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 97(5), Sep 2012, 913-930).

Ancient Assyria: home of the myth of Daniel

Authority figures, especially those who promise peace in times of conflict, or suggest that learning takes a different avenue when academic standards are diminished, know that it is easier to indoctrinate than educate, and for that reason all theologies and all religions start off with texts written by an authority figure (a deity, plural or singular): either with his/her/their hand or finger, as found in the Babylonian myth of Daniel and His Companions that was copied into the canon of the Old Testament (Daniel 5:5). The account of lions was a symbol of ancient Assyria where a pair of lions were stationed at the entrance of an Assyrian temple dedicated to Ishtar, the goddess of warfare, and fertility: Daniel was understood to be a portrayal of the people, and the lions guardians of sexuality and sexual pleasure.

The Ishtar gate (the Lion Gate) was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon

The Daniel myth began as pornography but was later sanitized and made “wholesome” by adding subjection to the will of the gods (accepting sex) but was redacted in its present format hundreds of years after the original writing by Assyria’s mercenary soldiers (Apiru–who become the Hebrews) and was later plagiarized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Book of Mormon (Alma 10:2-3). Both tracts give answers that others refuse to speculate on: a mythological happening that has no proof and original documentation to support the story. This leads to mental collapse rather than vigorous inquiry, as the student is exhausted quickly if not accustomed to the rigors and riches of real research that demands investigation, analysis, and projection.

Knowledge is both desirable and despised. This truism has been recorded as a fact for over 5000 years, as learning has become private property of wealthy interests and education has transmogrified into elevating the id of ownership and partisanship over objectivity as seen in the dramatic case of the censorship of Hans Küng of Switzerland, and the rise of pseudo-scholars such as Stephen C. Meyer, David Barton, Bob Vander Plaats, and other revisionists who lack any credentials. Much of this temerarious in dishabille of education is because of the lack of desire to achieve more than what is expected; to this end trite and barren words are repetitively used, vocabulary is underdeveloped, thinking truncated to that which is accepted by authority figures, and the conduct of inquiry abandoned for a cheap and worthless grade. This is especially true in languages, interpretation and translation courses, and the study of roots and origins of words and concepts.

In Genesis (3:4-5), “woman” (Arabic: امرأة, Greek: γυναίκα, Hebrew: אישה, Armenian: կին that refers to a helpmate), and later “man” (3:22; Arabic: رجل, Greek άνθρωπος, Hebrew גבר, Armenian մարդ) is promised knowledge but forbidden to sample it (eat the forbidden “fruit”–a word for obtaining an education–of the Tree of Knowledge). This is Teutonic (in the broad sense

Tree of Knowledge from an Assyrian cylinder, showing its god-priests

primordially antediluvian) religion: offering the temptation but rejecting any attempt to obtain what is extended by a Tempter or Temptress. The mythological Eve was actually the superior being (far surpassing the cowering man), arguing scripture (before it was written, thereby demonstrating that Genesis was written after the Torah so that “she” could incorporate parts within her debate) with the “Serpent” (Ide, Arthur Frederick (1982). Woman in ancient Israel under the Torah and Talmud, with a translation and critical commentary on Genesis 1-3. Mesquite, TX: IHP). The watchman faulted the man, reflecting the patriarchy of the time, but man, weak and obsequious to the authority figure blamed the superior and copacetic woman for the transgression that the Serpent knew would free mortals.

The Serpent, in all ancient religions, is the Guardian (and sometimes the author) of Knowledge. The Serpent is the greatest of the gods for it is λογος , from λέγω lego “I say”: meaning the voice of god or wisdom–god was never considered in the earliest days a divine mortal but a teacher) than the garden keeper, or watchman, who walked through the garden in quest of delinquents who were stealing that which was forbidden: knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17, a reference to peace and strife or conflict: the unquestioning acceptance of gods or the rejection (conflict) with superstition that comes with ignorance from lack of learning and obtaining knowledge).

If the garden keeper was a god, that deity in the denizen of superior beings (man and woman) had no god-like characteristics but was more like the ancient pontifex maximus of pre-Republic Rome. The watchman was not omniscience, omnipresence, or omnipotent. At best the watchman was an interrogator in quest of information that the watchman failed to note. The prowess the watchman did not possess belonged to the mortals who learned by “eating the forbidden fruit” that was, by various definitions: an apple (the fruit appears nowhere in Genesis, and its first use is in Proverbs 25:11 in referring to apples of gold in a setting of silver; more significantly, in the sexually charged and erotic Song of Solomon the apple is an erotic symbol indicating sweetness, desire, and the female breast), a pomegranate (going back to Greek mythology), a fig, the carob (the word is a pun for “destruction”), an etrog (in Hebrew a pun on ragag, “desire” or sexual arousement) or citron, grapes (that made Noah drunk and sin) and a pear, and, more recently, the datura and grapefruit; wheat is also denounced by some as a forbidden fruit as it was/is used in making beer and is khitah in Hebrew and thus a pun on khet, “sin” (Genesis 2:16-17; however, in the Qur’an both Adam and Eve are considered equally culpable: Surah Al-A’raf 7:19-22): a euphemism for study, debate, dialog, and mastery of information. This “fruit” (פרי a word for “result” or “gain” as in the obtaining of wisdom from the “Tree of Knowledge” another euphemism for “learning center” since a tree was the base and to advance in knowledge the student had to climb into the branches–taking a risk to obtain enlightenment) was only relinquished in exchange for a more placid and less commanding life that ignorance affords: no teachers, no debate, no dialog, no learning required, no questioning demanded; all that was necessary was blind obedience.

Iraq’s Garden of Eden marshes in 2003

The ignorance of the watchman (one of the many אֱלֹהִ֔ים) in the garden comes to fruition when the servant of the Serpent realizes that mortals no longer need a god (a trickster who offers mortals an immediate gratification rather than the ability and encouragement to progress to understanding) and conduct themselves as equal to any savant or sage such as the Serpent. This causes the guard to regret “creating” (actually watching after) mortals and in an hysterical fit vows vengeance and promises to erase all trace

Iraq’s Garden of Eden marshes in 2012 after they dried up.

of his mistake (Genesis 6:5 ff) with a giant holocaust: a Great Flood. The actual text notes that the Serpent god does not make mistakes: The Serpent as the teacher instructs, debates and weighs what the student says. It is the watchmen who fell asleep, misjudged the wards he was to oversee, and failed in numerous way (Genesis 3:9, proving the absence of knowledge by asking “Where are you?” as well as admitting the lack of omniscience and other godly attributes that come with learning).

Ur of the Chaldees outside of Eden (fertile crescent in Iraq)

It is only after the slaughter of the innocents in the Great Flood that the watchman steps down (Genesis 9:5, 11) and realizes that mortal are equals (Psalm 8:5, plagiarized by the writers of Hebrews 2:7). This action takes place only after the mortals (people, not one man plus one woman–a mistranslation carried since 331 CE) questioning the watchman with the protestation of the Akkadian created myth of

People of Ur worshiped the moon and a golden calf

Abraham (from the Ur of Chaldees: (אוּר כַּשְׂדִים) in modern day Iraq) accusing the gardener/watchman of violating his own principles: “That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25 KJV).

Even the ancient Jews knew that the Law was not written in heaven. It was commonly understood that mortals wrote the Torah, not Moses, as no mortal could write of his own death and burial (Deuteronomy 3:23-29; Numbers 27:15-23), but by man. This was forcefully articulated by Rabbi Jirmijahu who told a congregation of rabbis (teachers) that it was no longer essential to pay attention to the voices from heaven “because it is written: You make your decision according to the majority opinion.” (Talmud, Baba Meziah, 59b).

Humanism demands democratic methods, unlike the totalitarian plutocracy that the reprehensible Congresista Martha Chavez attempted to create as a permanent government in Perú for the scandalous rogue and mass murderer Alberto Fujimori, his graft-accepting colleague and chief spy and extortionist Vladimiro Montesinos, and their death squads of Las Colinas who murdered children, students and teachers without any compassion. It surprised many that the thoroughly corrupt and contemptible Peruvian Supreme Court, led by the monstrously mercenary court President César San Martin, in a 3-2 decision, cut back their prison time in a distorted and unjustifiable act of compassion. The Perú court ultimately overturned its own ruling and annulled the diminution of the sentences after a public outcry. What happened with justice in Perú proves that there is no justice in Perú until the people make their voices heard. Power, wealth, and authority speaks louder than fairness, ethical treatment, or responsibility for what is right for the churches in Perú control its politics, police, and government–the people of Perú are as impoverished today as were the Inkas after the arrival of Pizzaro and his band of Franciscans, Dominicans, and other cut-throats and brigands.

Jesus with weapons on evangelical mailings

Today the Christian churches have nothing in common with the teachings of the Jesus of the New Testament. Simple statements such as “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) are smothered under the bellicose promises of Matthew 10:34: Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν· οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν; the Latin Biblia Sacra Vulgata reads: nolite arbitrari quia venerim mittere pacem in terram non veni pacem mittere sed gladium. Religion has become an increasingly prevalent neurosis. Instead of enabling people to think and be freed from their own grief and self-abasement, the majority of early followers of Jesus who were poor Am aarez (slaves) the Imperial “catholic [universal] church” of Constantine I was reserved for the wealthy that continued to enslave the poor and rule over them as authority figures once they were entrenched as the guardians of the new state (military imposed)

Bible verses on USA military weapons

religion (325 CE). Ultimately the authority figures claimed to be intercessors of Constantine’s god, the beginning of numerous lies pushed on the believers that culminated in the nineteenth century when at Vatican Council I, Pius IX was acclaimed a god: infallible, primary, and supreme in matters of faith and morals, removing the last of free will from the people and furthering the

British prelate Newman flip-flops on Infallibility

neurosis of those who claimed to be Roman Catholic. Infallibility was heatedly contested, but papal politics played passionately among dissenters, many of whom won promotions and a few the cardinal’s hat. Those who suffered were those struggling to understand reality through thorough investigation and study and did not accept the novel idea that a mortal was as infallible as a god. Dissent was not new in Constantine’s church, but the Doctrine of Infallibility intensified the debate that began in 325 CE at Nicaea.

First Council of Nicaea – 325 CE – Cannon 8 Concerns Cathars (the damned do not have halos)

After the notorious Council at Nicaea, the bishops began an open assault on dissent that would increase yearly to the present day. The former pagan and later self-proclaimed bishop of Hippo: Augustine who had a child out of wedlock with a whore (and wrote to stifle intellectual growth, citing only established canons and writings that did not offend the empire, glorifying a city no one had visited and of which there was no empirical evidence, and harmonizing his rants with others who blasted dissent as attacks against the Imperial Church) attacked the monk Pelagius (ca. CE 354 – c. CE 420/440) an ascetic who opposed the idea of predestination championed by Augustine but received its greatest boost under the misrule of Jean Calvin in Geneva and John Knox in Scotland, and asserted a strong version of the doctrine of free will.

Pelagius of Wales

Pelagius, a tonsured Culdee Monk from the British Isles who was known as a dedicated ascetic, was far more “Christian” than Augustine (cf. Pelagius. The Letters of Pelagius: Celtic Soul Friend; edited by Robert Van de Weyer. (Little Gidding books.) Evesham, UK: Arthur James, 1995, and Pelagius’s Expositions of the Thirteen Epistles of St. Paul; edited by A. Souter. (Texts and Studies; 9.) 3 vols. in 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1922-1931 1: Introduction – 2: Text – 3: Pseudo-Jerome interpolations). Pelagius argued that humans were not wounded by Adam’s sin (the eating of the fruit: the acceptance of knowledge) and were perfectly able to fulfill the law apart from any divine aid–a theme Augustine coveted and wrote at lengths on calling on “sinners” to perform good works (a thesis that Martin Luther would reject in the sixteenth century, when he followed Pelagius in arguing that all that a human needed was faith). He denied the more specific doctrine of original sin as developed by Augustine, but was declared a heretic and felt the weight of the church crush him, while the writings of Arius were burned at the feet of the Emperor.

While Pelagius encouraged studying and intellectual growth (he was fluent in Greek, Latin, and theology, and was even called “saintly” by Augustine) to rid oneself of being robots to rigid religion, Augustine wanted blind faith and good works that increased the wealth of the church and set clerics apart from those they served.

Tridentine Index defined three basic classes of prohibited books

Burning books and silencing dissent is always the sign of tyranny–one that the Roman Catholic Church elevated to an art with its Index of Forbidden Books. Censorship is not scholarship but a sign of a threatened institution determined to maintain its prerogatives and rule over others by lowering standards and forbidding true scholarship and the conduct of inquiry. Discovery of the self, the very foundation of psychology and psychoanalysis, was forbidden and mortals have ever since 325 CE been commanded by priests and potentates to follow the rigorous writing of self-proclaimed leaders of “the church”. The acceptance of definitive forms of censorship, such as book burning, is a collective adherence by an irrational society to drab and erroneous beliefs or doctrines and leads to the lowering of expectations, desires to advance, and rejection of sound scholarship that is especially true in nations and states under religious control (Jahoda, Marie (1956). “Psychological Issues in Civil Liberties.” American Psychologist, 11, 1956, pp. 234-240). While Donofrio concurs in part with Jahoda (Donofrio, Anthony F. (1957). “Conformity–Good and Bad”. doi: 10.1037/h0047469. American Psychologist, Vol 12(1), Jan 1957, 37-38), he attacks “liberals” as being nearly anarchists who reject all conformity in government, religion, and other places where rules maintain civility; this I disagree with because rules are valid only for specific times since eternality is not possible for any mortal and thus there must be revisions to constitutions, laws, applications, and so forth as time grows and with it there must be a modification, change, or deletion in rules (something that Antonin Scalia disagrees with emphatically, claiming that the wording of the Constitution of the USA is chiseled in stone and cannot be deviated from: a reason he, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, want to eliminate the 14th and 17th amendment from the US Constitution). If rules do not change, then Jews, Christians and others who pattern themselves after the Torah and Prophets cannot eat shell fish, wear mixed fibers (such as rayon), and so forth. This will stifle society and intellectual growth. Similarly, Drenth (Drenth, Pieter J. D. (1993). “Prometheus chained: Social and ethical constraints on psychology”. doi: 10.1027//1016-9040.4.4233. European Psychologist. Vol. 4(4) December, 233-239), argues that the psychologist and other researchers do not have the freedom to amass knowledge at any price and without any restrictions. Again, I disagree, as when knowledge is guarded, limited, denied, then society and individuals cannot intellectually, morally, or socially evolve to a high plateau.

In the early days of reformed Judaism that had been the faith of those who proclaimed themselves followers of Jesus, presbyters and women priests nourished and watch grow a strong anti-authoritarian principle especially against political power rejected the “church. This changed in 325 CE, when bishops were ordered to be men (although there were women bishops in the Roman Catholic Church as late as the fifteenth century) and the term “church” was not used by the embryonic community. The earliest followers of Jesus referred to their meeting places in gardens, alleys and private homes as αρχοντικού, Κυριάκος (lord’s house) where meetings were held to celebrate life (Matthew 18:20), not to recite prayers and endow the pockets of priests and bishops. What few records exist, these followers were more humanists than religious disciples, as their goal was to help the poor, feed the hungry, give drink to those who had thirst, comfort those who grieved, and fulfill the injunctions given in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). All that mattered was that they loved each other regardless of gender or other outward qualifiers (John 13:34-35: [34] ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους. [35] ἐν τούτῳ γνώσονται πάντες ὅτι ἐμοὶ μαθηταί ἐστε, ἐὰν ἀγάπην ἔχητε ἐν ἀλλήλοις). Marriage was a private celebration and not a part of the church; sacraments had not yet been defined. What counted was to be charitable with and toward all people. There was no rush to martyrdom–that is a later invention; there was no priestly hierarchy (Matthew 20:16) and there was no pope. Emphasis was on each person reaching his or her fullest potential.

While the early Jesus communities in Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and elsewhere were satisfied with meeting in Κυριάκος (homes filled with the lord [spirit]), with the rise of an exclusive and exclusionary state religion it became “church” or εκκλησία. Church/ecclesia meant “gathering of those summoned” and represented a court or at least an assembly or law court/government as found in ancient Sparta and other Greek states, Rome and throughout the Roman Empire. With the formal support of the Emperor, the “church” (ecclesia: εκκλησία) was elevated to novel level of being where “bishops” sat (cathedrals) to sit in judgment against heretics—in total contradiction to Matthew 7:1 and Acts 10:34. By 331 CE, any semblance of Christianity to the teaching of Jesus were obscured, transmogrified, or deleted. Books, scrolls and tracts denouncing the abandonment of the message of the New Testament Jesus were publicly burned. Those who dared question the authority of the Church faced Socrates fate by state or church. Numerous popular and widely copied and read gospels were refused canon (authenticity) including major gnostic works: Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and so forth.

As the church grew in power, freedom diminished, and popular delusions, illusions, hysterics and signs of mental illness appeared with “talking in tongues” that were gibberish and not the Glossolalia in the Jerusalem community where the brothers of Jesus followed the beloved brother James and their mother, Mary, sat with the Apostles in the upper room and received (or realized) the ability to “speak in the tongue of each person who had gathered” with them (Acts 2:1-11). The “descent of the Spirit” was an opening to learning, in this case simple language so that all people could understand (The Greeks recognized five languages but 70 “tongues” or dialects–so the speaking was not difficult as most of the people understood some form of Greek; it was similar to an elementary language course at most universities). The Church in Rome created a new universal language–Latin–that few of the poor or those enslaved understood: it was the lingua franca (or working language of the wealthy that kept them apart from the people), and thus the Mass became a “mystery rite” and the sacraments were born where blind faith was required if a person was to be saved.

With this reinvention of religion as a rope to strangle dissenters—an act that took place regularly with state sanction. All aspects of divinity were exchanged for writs of power and tyranny.

Constantine’s Christianity quickly became an exercise in mind control. Constantine’s bishops and priests theological terrorists demanding blind obedience in everything, similar to the autocracy of John Nienstedt bishop of St Paul / Minneapolis, and the German Pope Josef Ratzinger.

As the minority (the new Christians) gained in power, the masses of believers were forced into subjection. This subjection led to the spread of acute mental malaise.

Worship became a punishment if prayers were not recited carefully and according to religious rubrics. Striving to select one’s own destiny was forbidden under penalty of death (a penalty realized with the forced introduction of the unholy Inquisition, that was abandoned until it was restored by Joseph Ratzinger (read here and here and here and here).

Individuals became dependent upon the Roman Catholic Church for everything from food and drink to psychological comforting from sadistic and dominating authoritarian structures. Given the impoverishment of the economy the early reformed Jews accepted the novel title of “Christian” (a word that suggested a magician) and role of masochists bowing to the greater authority of bishops who replaced presbyters and with their submission accepted their own mental collapse to the point of losing basic motor skills including speech as speech was not welcomed unless voices were raised in prayer and praise. The poor were told that Jesus wanted people to follow a man, misquoting a mistranslation of Matthew 16:18, and relate only to the power source: priests and bishops.

Giving up the need to relate oneself to and with others is a classic form of insanity (Erich Fromm (1950). Psychoanalysis and Religion. (New Haven, CT and London, England: Yale University Press, p. 54). This classic form of insanity, the inability to relate to others outside of the self, led to the invention of saints and the worship and adoration, clothing and anointing, bestowing of flowers upon or around statues of various people the official church considered holy. Many of these were declared to be “virgins” (a mistranslation of people who had not engaged in coital intercourse; the word means a young girl or a young boy in most situations–as with Mary the mother of Jesus, who the church Greek styles as παρθένος and is later styled Μήτηρ Θεοῦ or Mother of God, a term originally used 3000 years earlier as a reference to the goddess Isis)–who had other sons (Acts 1:14) disproving the claims that Mary remained “ever virgin” (Coogan, Michael (October 2010). God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says (1st ed.). New York, NY and Boston, MA: Twelve. Hachette Book Group. p. 39; Tabor, James D. (2006). The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. New York, NY and other cities: Simon) & Schuster, pp. 46-47, 73-75 sqq). Sex is a part of the psychology or all living beings; the Christian God is conceived of as a God of love, and chastity and continence are regarded as states of perfection, yet sexual fulfillment and experience is a part of self-actualization and leads to a normal and psychologically balanced life as there exists a connection between the emotions of affection and love, on the one hand, and sexual activity on the other; to that end Moses and most of the Prophets had wives and sex, and led to Coptic writers of the fourth century CE to pen that Jesus had a wife.

Sex is a normal function and experience for all people. To deny anyone sexual expression and pleasure is tantamount to denying its normality and claiming sex is abnormal and dangerous to the psyche of the individual (Leuba, James H. (1924). “The sex impulse in Christian mysticism”. doi: 10.1037/hoo65o91. The Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology, Vol 19(4), January 1924, 357-372). A reading of St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castlereveals

subliminal references to sex as with her comment “my heart was pierced and I felt strangely warmed” (a phrase used later in Wesleyan theology) that the sculpture Bernini captured in marble. The Interior Castle also has the pregnant line: “Here also forces of evil are felt more deeply” with illustrative phraseology defining penetration. Studies show that the younger the person is who engages in sex tends to have a negative attitude toward sex if it was abusive or unwelcomed by a older person/parental figure, and lowers psychosocial adjustment in selected domains in young adulthood and inhibits educational quests and mastery of attaining knowledge (Haase, Claudia M.; Landberg, Monique; Schmidt, Christoph; Lüdke, Kirsten; Silbereisen, Rainer K. (2012). “The later, the better? Early, average, and late timing of sexual experiences in adolescence and psychological adjustment in young adulthood.”doi: 10.1027/1016-9040/a000082. European Psychologist, Vol 17(3), 2012, 199-212). The only plausible excuse to avoid sexual intercourse is if the penetration was traumatic and unwelcomed (Petry, Nancy M.; Ford, Julian D.; Barry, Danielle (2011). “Contingency management is especially efficacious in engendering long durations of abstinence in patients with sexual abuse histories.” doi: 10.1037/a0022632. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Vol 25(2), Jun 2011, 293-300); there is no record in any sanctioned gospel that Mary approved or rejected the sexual advance of god (similar to the rape of Europa by the god Zeus in the form of a bull, etc.) and follows numerous far older legends from Crete to Egypt and the Middle East. To deny the reality of sex and its desirability is to reject the psychology of mortal beings.

By cherishing the virgins, Völkerwanderung (wandering, or migration, of the peoples), and enforced celibacy, Europe nearly extinguished itself until the absence of labor forces required the church to reinvent the rubric on celibacy and chastity only for those men and women who took positions in the church hierarchy (holy orders)—even though there were no less than 38 married popes (Jean Mathieu-Rosay (1991). La véritable histoire des papes. Paris, France: Grancher; Rendina, Claudio (1983). I Papi, Storia e Segreti: dalle biografie dei 264 romani ponteficirivivono retroscena e misteri della cattedra di Pietro tra antipapi, giubilei, conclavi e concili ecumenici. Roma: Newton & Campton, p. 589), and at least eleven homosexual popes, many of whom raised their male lovers to the cardinalate (Burkle-Young, Francis A., and Doerrer, Michael Leopold (1997). The Life of Cardinal Innocenzo del Monte: A Scandal in Scarlet, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen). Education declined with the rise of scriptorum that copied deteriorating texts and inserting words, phrases, and sentences that were out of character with the author and now found to be falsifications by contemporary scholars, as with the claim by the Roman Catholic Church that Tacitus argued for the person Jesus of the New Testament, and other ancients, such as Josephus, gave evidence to support the existence, life and ministry of Jesus. Education further deteriorated with emphasis on memorizing the Bible, and the rejection of science, mathematics, and secular arts (Pierre Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: From the Sixth through the Eighth Century, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1976), pp. 100-129, 307-323).

Rationalize behavior is the counterfeit of reason and is a form of paranoia. Rationalization has no place in psychoanalysis or psychology as it denies some facts and taints others thereby not giving a true picture of what happened or what the mind was thinking. People, like cattle, follow a leader; this is known as herd psychology and is a form of mental illness as the German people exhibited from 1933 to 1955 spanning the years of Hitler whom most ignored but did understand what was happening—and said nothing. With racism rampant in the USA, people excused the KKK not for excess but for outcome: the slaughter of Black people, Jews, LGBT people, and marginalized minorities (Brown, S. (1921). “The herd instinct”. doi: 10.1037/h0072279. The Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology,Vol 16(4), October-November, 232-242.; MacCurdy, J. T. (1921). “Synthetic view of ego, herd, and sex instincts”. doi: 10.1037/h0075069. The Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology, Vol 16(4), October-November, 249-268. Also see the problems of collective behavior: Swann Jr., William B.; Jetten, Jolanda; Gómez, Ángel; Whitehouse, Harvey; Bastian, Brock (2012). “When group membership gets personal: A theory of identity fushion”. doi: 10.1037/a0028589. Psychological Review, Vol 119(3), July, 441-456. The problem with collective behavior is the character (strength and weakness) of the leader, as detailed by Johnson, Russell E.; Venus, Merlijn; Lanaj, Klodiana; Mao, Changguo; Chang, Chu-Hsiang (2012). “Leader Identity as an Antecedent of the Frequency and Consistency of Transformational, Consideration, and Abusive Leadership Behaviors”. doi: 10.1037/a0029043. Journal of Applied Psychology, Jun 25 , 2012).

Both psychoanalysis and psychology are applicable to an understanding the facts as they occur and in the order that they occur. When a person attempts to rationalize behavior it is essential to minutely investigate the rationalization to obtain a complete understanding of the individual and what happened. This seldom occurs, and mental illness grows especially among those most hate-filled, such as the Tea Party, the Birthers and the men and women who are violently anti-Latino/Latina in Arizona in the twenty-first century and are opposed to all Middle Easterners as if they all were Muslims and jihadists. The psychoanalytic approach to religion must work at understanding mortal reality behind thought systems. It must understand emotional matrices from which opinions develop and determine the strength or weakness of those opinions. Rick Perry’s mass hysteria at his Day of Prayer shows the significance many feel when they are a collective group and cannot be held responsible for what they do or how they act.

Many of those who are preoccupied with concepts of the soul declare that they find living difficult. This is a reflex towards uncertainty and the fear that if they live in any way that is not ordained by religion they will go to some imaginary uncomfortable place such as purgatory or hell—which for those in hot lands is a place of eternal fire, but in winter-cold lands is a place of ice.

Pope Paul V forced Jews into a ghetto that flooded regularly

Jews were especially singled out as “Christ killers”. Jews were restricted to ghettos (the giudecca), work variances at lower wages, and discussion with Christians (save for the “opportunity of conversion”–which many did to escape drudgery of life and poor living conditions, but continued their Jewish celebrations at night in the darkness of their homes and in whispers). The papal Bull Cum Nimis Absurdum created a second ghetto known as Vicus Iudacorum in Rome, consisting of a few narrow, dirty, and unhealthful streets that soon became painfully overcrowded. The ghetto was an intentional, understood by the pope and curia, and the Christians of Rome as a death trap as it was flooded each year by the Tiber. As the Jewish population grew, the only way to accommodate it was to build taller and taller buildings, which shut out the light in the narrow streets. The Jews were restricted from learning as learning was memorizing the New Testament (primarily the writings of Paul), but in the evenings, Jewish families read and recited the Torah (first five books ascribed to Moses created the preface for the Old Testament; they are followed by the writing/sayings of the later Prophets). On the Jewish Sabbath, the Jews of the Rome ghetto were forced to hear Catholic sermons and recite Catholic prayers under penalties ranging from excessive fines and beatings to death of the one not praying and his or her family. With the advent of Protestantism (that also turned against the Jews), the corpus Christianorum (body of all believers in Christ [Jesus]) became even more violent and exclusionary toward Jews, with Pope Paul V(17 September 1552 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, issuing, on February 26, 1569, the Bull Hebraeorum gens sola. This nefarious document restricted Jews in the Papal States to Rome and Ancona. Hebraeorum gens sola was made more painful with the printing of Caeca et Obdurata Hebraeorum perfidia – (Blind and obdurate is the perfidy of the Hebrews) of February 25, 1593. It expelled the Jews from all Papal states and territories other than Rome, Ancona and Avignon, and in particular from Bologna and several other cities. Similar assaults on the Jewish population of Europe occurred in the North, as seen in the open hatred and antisemitism of Martin Luther and his preamble to the writing and legislation of Adolf Hitler: Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies) and Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (Of the Unknowable Name and the Generations of Christ), being under the convert to Christianity, Anton Margaritha, who wrote the grotesque (a word that originated in ancient Greece as κρυφό (hidden place) that took the definition of κρύπτη (crypt, meaning dark and forbidding) book Der gantze Jüdisch Glaub (The Whole Jewish Belief) whose book was discredited in 1530 leading to Margaritha’s expulsion from the Empire–but Luther used it anyway in the same manner Hitler used the works of Luther with the purpose of retrenching and destroying the conduct of inquiry similar to that of Bryan Fischer and the Tea Party in the USA that champions the unhistorical works of David Barton who has had no formal education in history, and the pseudo-science of Stephen C. Myer and his Intelligent Design Institute.

Hitler was supported by many western powers, including the United Kingdom and the USA with US Senator Prescott Bush helping to finance Hitler’s death camps (read here and here). The UK refused refuge to Jewish emigrants, and boarded many on planes to Warsaw, Poland where they were arrested and sent to death camps.

While Europe was marginalizing Jews and proceeding down the path of ignorance, the same Jews, along with Muslims (who were Christians by day) maintained many ancient texts, including Plato and Aristotle along with Greek mathematicians and scientists, that the Roman Catholic Church was damning and consigning to the flames to erase “pagan influences” (Lebedel, Claude (2006), Les Croisades, origines et conséquences, Editions Ouest-France, p. 109). For this reason, the Jews and Muslims of Europe rose to be the intellectual class, and by the seventeenth century began to number among the greatest authorities and authors of the age leading into the Age of Enlightenment from Baruch Spinoza (he later changed his name to Benedict de Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) to .

What is essential is to enable the person distressed by the “difficulties of life” to understand that life is what the individual makes of it and how the individual perceives life. In most cases, these difficulties are the result of an irrational fear of death—a fear generated by an uncertainty that there is a life after death even though the individual religious adherent professes to believe in a heaven or other-worldly place. To conquer this fear is to engage in a discussion on whether or not such a positive or negative place can be proven, and whether or not the test or provability even has value for living today. Too many people suffer dread from that which no one has proof and that which cannot be proven.

On July 18, 2012, the Leaders of the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Secular Student Alliance, along with student leaders of other campus groups, criticized a remark made last week by KFAB radio talk-show host Scott Voorhees. Scott Voorhees (On air: 9-11 a.m. Telephone: 402-558-1110 / 800-543-1110; e-mail: scott@kfab.com) a member of the Omaha, Nebraska Tea Party has frequently been lauded as “standing up for democracy”. At the same time, all anti-Tea Party actions are labeled as conspiracies.

Records show that the Tea Party has never stood “up for democracy”.

State Rep. Virgel Peck (R-KS)

Kansas State Representative Virgil Peck (R-Tyro) has suggested shooting “illegal immigrants like feral swine” (read here and here). He is funded by the Koch Brothers through Americans For Prosperity, and has severe issues with Latinos “and other illegal aliens”.

The Tea-Party-controlled Utah legislature passed HB

Rep. Brad J. Galvez (R-District 6)

3117 legislation requiring the state to recognize gold and silver as legal tender in defiance of the US Constitution, introduced by Representative Brad Galvez (R-District 6). Interestingly, there is an official cut-off, as all gold and silver had to be minted no later than 1965. “The Utah Specie Tender Act of 2011” or “The Sound Money Act,” passed by the Utah legislature recognizes that the U.S. Constitution says no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. It also notes that Congress granted an “exclusive franchise to the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank, acting as the central bank of the nation, to issue Federal Reserve Notes as legal tender of the United States.” The time it took to debate the Tea Party sponsored issue and pass the legislation cost Utah taxpayers dearly.

Tea Party Joe Read MT legislator (2012)

In Montana, First-term Tea Party Representative Joe Read (R-Ronan), introduced House Bill 549 declaring global warming “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana”. In Georgia, the Tea Party Representative Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta) representing the 43rd District, introduced legislation (SB 315) to abolish driver’s licenses because licensing violates the “inalienable right” to drive (it is nowhere in the Constitution).

Hal Wick (R-Sioux Falls)

Legislation proposed in South Dakota by Rep. Hal Wick (R-Sioux Falls) would require every adult to buy a gun (HB 1237), and Tea Party State Rep. Phil Jensen (R-District 33) wants to pass legislation (HB 1171) that would call any destruction of fertilized ova justifiable homicide if a killer is trying to stop harm to a fetus whom the Tea Party prefers to call an “unborn child” at the point of conception, even though it has no heart, brain, or other noticeable part that could be considered human. The Tea Party in South Dakota also wants to ban Sharia Law even though South Dakota has but a handful of Muslims (0.3% or 2,088 people) out of 696,004 people.

Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) made a broadside attack on the right to meet, open speech, and curb the unions that made the state strong and progressive. An attempt was made to impeach Walker, but it failed as the Koch Brothers and other billionaires poured millions of dollars into his war chest to fend off the recall effort. In exchange for the “assistance” he promised to cut concessions to unions.

Jan Brewer’s racism even has surpassed that of Alabama’s George Wallace and Mississippi’s governors who attended KKK rallies and lynchings, and is nearly equaled to the bumbling of Terry Branstad (R-IA) whose son, Eric, killed two people and never faced state punishment. Even California has its share of anti-democracy, anti-immigration, and anti-education Tea Party activists.

Scott Voorhees speaking to Tea Party (May 11, 2011)

Little is said by the staid and ossified media controlling and disseminating misinformation in Nebraska about Scott Voorhees womanizing, street vulgarity or masquerading as one seeking truth as he is limited in his quest to pursue the conduct of inquiry from any academic perspective. Nebraska’s tie to the KKK was strongest in the 1920s and 1930s, but remains a force to this day, cloaking their robes under flags (read here and here and here and here for a state-by-state breakdown).

KKK ceremony in Lincoln, NE in 1923 (Photo: Art Kuhr)

Nebraska and Iowa are two states with the fastest growing number of KKK and Neo-Nazi groups with Mississippi second to Iowa (with the KKK visiting Postville in full robes will police watch without moving) and closing in on Nebraska. Iowa, with a population of 3 million, has a dozen Klan groups with headquarters in Boone, Iowa–where the number of Klansmen is estimated to be over 4,000. It is estimated that the KKK does thousands of dollars worth of damage and bodily assaults every year, even at state universities.

Mississippi, with a population of 2.9 million, has nine Klan groups, all active destroying private property of Jews, Blacks, LGBT citizens, and businesses that cater to them. The KKK is believed to be behind numerous unsolved murders, and has a training ground for recruits who come from midwestern states, especially from Nebraska and Iowa. Mississippi is tied with Louisiana, which has 4.4 million with the majority being religious fundamentalists/evangelical extremists as with Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa, the leader of an organized hate group known as The FAMiLY (a state affiliate of and funded by the American Family Association a certified hate group), selling and spelling hate daily that is the spiritual home of Iowa’s neo-Nazis and KKK who basically control the state government.

Darling to Iowa’s Nazis and KKK: Bob Vander Platts, funded by the American Family Association (a recognized and certified hate group) 2012

These preposterous and undemocratic bills and laws have been fought by many, but the strongest opponents are students in public schools and university. Among the least likely place to find defenders of freedom is in the Midwest, especially in Nebraska that hung black people and maintained cauldrons of the Khristian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan taking aim against Blacks, Jews, non-believers, and gays.

Rationalists, Empiricists and Skeptics of Nebraska

The UNO Secular Student Alliance is a democratic society of scholars dedicated to organizing, uniting, educating, and serving students that have an interest in a secular, non-theist philosophy while promoting the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human based ethics.

Luke Hoffman invited to speak

Speaking to the Omaha Tea Party, calling them “fellow racists, extremists” (watch here), Scott Voorhees regularly, menacingly mocks people who are on food stamps, who had no electrical power in their home (May 7, 2011) or depend on charity to sustain life. He has done this often, especially when guns and the NRA are involved or when called upon by the Nebraska Tea Party to celebrate hate and stand against “entitlement mentality.”

Voorhees is typical of the Tea Party and its founder Judson Philips. Closely identical to numerous people who claim scholarship and have none, Voorhees is similar to Texas pseudo-historian David Barton (founder of the fanatical fundamentalist fraternity known as WallBuilder–a group that rewrites history to give USA history a conservative Christian twist). Neither holds formal credentials in history or law, and scholars dispute the accuracy and integrity of Barton’s assertions about history. Most historians whose publications have been peer-reviewed, none of Barton’s tomes have had critical academic scrutiny, have disavowed Barton and deny recognition of his writings except when discussing what inaccurate historical essays look like. Barton’s prevarications are little more than the mincing of Voorhees that his radio station exempts, claiming “freedom of speech”. Barton is, at best, a fraud in the judgment of his peers (read here and here; cp with former Senator Arlen Spector (R-PA)’s article: read Specter, Arlen (Spring 1995). “Defending the wall: Maintaining church/state separation in America”. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 18 (2): 575–590; and, Eckholm, Erik (May 4, 2011). “Using History to Mold Ideas on the Right”. New York Times). Voorhees, Barton, and others of the same ilk all claiming a divine understanding: from Mike Huckabee (he has a bachelor degree from Ouachita Baptist University in religion, has no formal religious education dropping out of seminary after one year to become a Christian broadcaster) and Marion Gordon (Pat) Robertson who graduated from Washington and Lee University with a degree in history– and like George W. Bush had his powerful father (a US Senator) pull strings to keep him out of active military service (“Robertson’s libel suit by judge ex-congressman ruled the legal victor”. Philadelphia Daily News: p. 14. March 7, 1988) after which Robertson took a bachelor of laws from Yale—and failed the bar exam; he earned an initial degree in religion but without distinction. All others, to whom they attach their political ambitions have had scant training in history or theology, and are woefully ignorant about US history as is Barton (video). None has had hermeneutics training or any biblical language study for translation, interpretation, or encryption.

The ignorance of what has happened and continues to happen in the USA is seen in the addresses and responses of Tea Party co-founder Sol Russo (watch here). The Tea Party’s cause is quasi-silently supported by the administration of the University of Nebraska at Omaha as the university has connections with the station, and maintains the ties despite students calling on UNO officials to pressure KFAB for an apology and a retraction for Voorhees sexist remarks about atheist women.

Voorhees called atheist women “easy”, during one interview, implying that atheist women are, in Rush Limbaugh’s words, “sluts.” The President of University of Nebraska at Omaha said nothing. There was no remonstrance, no demand for an apology, no denunciation of Voorhees, preferring to wash his hands of the matter similar to Pontius Pilot (Matthew 27:24).

The problem lies with the President of UNO and his advisors who are tightly controlled by the media and the legislature. The remark under fire was made by Voorhees on July 10 on KFAB Radio 1110, in response to being informed by show guest Luke Hoffman of the UNO Secular Student Alliance that the UNO CRU Christian group had cooperated with the secular student group to put on a debate last semester.

UNO Secular Student Alliance member

Hearing Hoffman’s fact, Voorhees declamatorily declared: “You know why the Christian kids [sic] helped you out in your debate? Because atheist chicks are easy. And a lot of them are Goth and hot.” Hear the broadcast here. The remark in question starts at the 14:16 mark.

According to Voorhees MySpace page, Voorhees bills himself as a “Christian – Other”. The “other” is evangelical extremist, more on keeping with the NAR than any mainstream thought, and cuddles close to the satanist sentences of Scott Lively of California who is a trenchant advocate for guns arguing with the NAR that Jesus will ride out of heaven (ignoring the laws of gravity) brandishing a sword to separate families and slaughter unbelievers (Matthew 10:34).

Jesus rides a white horse out of the heavens, carrying a sword (Matthew 10:34)

This myth can be traced back to Beowulf and even the legend of Muhammad’s second coming. As with Christianity, ancient Judaism, the various religions found in India and throughout Europe, there is no mention of forgiveness, understanding, peace, or love. The ultimate “anointed one” (the true definition of Christ) is not a peaceful sovereign, but an absolute tyrant who will destroy the earth to save his chosen few. The same is prophesied for Muhammad and his Final Battle that would have more carnage and death than all of the Prophet’s many wars against Arab cities that did not bow down to him as he marched across the sands after erasing the ancient city of Yathrib and renaming it Medina.

Muhammad riding horse with a sword in his hand accompanied by the archangel Gabriel (8th century Qu’ran–before the prohibition on illustrating the Prophet carried with it the penalty of death)

It fits nicely with the New Apostolic Reformation and theological terrorism worldwide.

Evangelicals like Lively and Voorhees are the first to cast stone, the last to see the mote in his own eye as he condemns or solicits those he opposes as if he were Ananias bar Annas High Priest of the Temple and a murderer.

Voorhees own education is limited. Voorhees took a high school diploma (without distinction) from Ralston High School (NE) in 1995, He was awarded a BA in journalism / mass communication from a small satellite school of the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 2003, although he attended from 1995-1998. His work career was equally mundane.

Before becoming a radio personality, Voorhees worked at Vanbros and Associates in Overland Park, KS. Vanbros specializes in “talent management”–especially of beautiful girls in beauty contests. It bills itself as a firm that are “Producers of Miss USA® and Miss Teen USA ® for the states of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma” (see here).

According to those who remembered Voorhees (but asked not to be identified by name), Voorhees was “always hot and after sexy chicks” as “being horny as a rabbit”. It has been said that Voorhees claimed that was “god’s purpose in creating man” to have sex with as many women as possible.

Voorhees off-colored and totally inappropriate remark is within Voorhees character that has a shallow definition of and low esteem for women. Voorhees remarks are as odious as the political opportunists Todd Akin (R-MO, now running for US Senate), Tom Smith (R-PA, now running for US Senate), and Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) who argue against penalties for “legitimate rape”; Steven King (R-IA), Annette Sweeney (R-IA), and others who argues for dog fighting and opposes any law regulating cruelty to animals (read here and here). Following the remark that was made on air about “atheist chicks”, some callers to the talk show criticized the host. Voorhees made no apology. Since a recording of the show was posted online, other individuals have publicized the incident on the Internet.

Voorhees, like most Tea Party cult members, believes the role of a woman is to have sex at the demand of the male and produce babies while staying “hot” in appearance. His understanding of anything in the Bible (that no one saw him read) is marginal at best, and as there is no reference, anywhere, that women are to be treated as sex objects in the New Testament, although there function was to bear the burden in the Old (Genesis 1:28) in careless and corrupt contemporary translations that are more titillating than thought-provoking (the mathematical term “multiply” does not appear before the fourteenth century CE; before that time it meant to “increase in comprehension or wisdom”). Although, like most theological thugs, thieves and liars, Voorhees thinks that women should be silent as the writers of the Letters of Paul put forward (1 Corinthians 14:33-35; this, too, is a corruption of the original that stated “prayerful” and “not to sing”) in their destruction of original Christianity in an effort to elevate Paulinity and support the Imperial directives of the Emperor Constantine. The Emperor was hardly a “Christian.” In 325, Constantine [real name Custennyn / Custennin] ordered the arrest of all cult leaders of major cults and their forcible attendance at Nicaea in order to form a new official religion—assisted and coordinated with Eusebius of Caesarea-the first Patriarch of Christianity (as Alexander).to silence dissent and to create a novel codex for the various groups of christianos and chrestianos. Original Christianity was slaughtered at the altar of expediency to opt for the bastardized version of Paulinity).

Constantine died in 337 near the city of Helenopolis (Altinova), on the southern shores of the Gulf of İzmit in preparation for a further campaign against the Sassanids. His death is clouded in mystery as it is claimed by the Vatican he died of sickness and invented the myth that Constantine in his final moments converted to his version of Christianity (Constantine I created the “catholic [universal] church” in 325 CE as a political move to ensure stability of the empire and ordered the burning of all books and tracts (Sozomen, Historia Ecclesia, Book 1, ch.21; the original is in Greek and Latin) that did not support his concept of what he called Christianity (Constantine proclaims Jesus to be a god only in 312 CE), and rejects objections (Eusebius, Vita Constantini, Book III, ch.6ff; original is in Greek).

The Roman Senate proclaimed the dead emperor a god. What makes the official Roman Catholic account more suspect, is the simultaneous death of his Patriarch Eusebius that solidifies the extant claim of Sassanid “Assassins” as probably more accurate. This rewriting of history and falsification of data laden with aspersions is the mainstay of such frauds as David Barton, Rush Limbaugh, and Voorhees.

Hoffman attempted to go through university channels to have the matter addressed internally. This proved futile.

After a week, with no commitment from the university that was under tight control of conservative Christians who refused to respond, Hoffman, on behalf of students and public outraged by the remark, emailed letters to the president of the University of Nebraska as well as the radio station. He made the content of those letters available to the media. The text appears below.

My name is Luke Hoffman. I am the immediate past president of the
University of Nebraska at Omaha Secular Student Alliance. During a
radio interview July 10 with your talk show host Scott Voorhees,
Voorhees made a comment that I challenged on the spot and wish to
follow up on now. In reaction to the fact that a Christian club on
campus had networked with the UNO Secular Student Alliance to put on a civil debate, Voorhees went so far as to say, “You know why the
Christian kids helped you out in your debate? Because atheist chicks
are easy. And a lot of them are Goth and hot.” (You can listen to this
remark at http://bit.ly/NmcGaG starting at the 14:16 mark.)

In addition to this being another example of what has been termed the
“war on women,” it also impugns the motives of the Christian group,
suggesting that their cooperation was insincere. I called this sexist
remark disgusting at the time (after which I was immediately
disconnected) and, in response to numerous calls for further response,
wish to readdress the matter now.

The reason that Voorhees was discussing this matter in the first place
was because of the forthcoming Midwest Freethought Conference and the Omaha Coalition of Reason billboard on 72nd and Pacific here in the
city. This is the fourth Midwest Freethought Conference and, as such,
it contributes to Omaha’s economic development.

But instead of discussing this unique community event, Voorhees chose
to be dismissive while dehumanizing atheist women. Moreover, when
listeners called in to express their legitimate outrage at his comments, he ridiculed them for lacking a sense of humor. But isn’t that the usual cover for bigoted remarks against minority groups? How many times have people tried to excuse racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism under the cover of humor? Radio announcer Don Imus tried this in 2007 with his “joke” about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team and was fired as a result.

In the popular atheist blog “The Friendly Atheist,” Hemant Mehta
describes the interaction as “frustrating all around, and that was
even before he made his most inflammatory comment.” Voorhees’
misplaced hostility toward people with differing views was, I think,
demonstrated by his offensive remarks as well as his apparent
unwillingness to really listen to his guests on that occasion.

The membership of the UNO SSA and I, therefore, request that KFAB
repudiate Voorhees’ remarks against atheist women and that he
personally apologize.

As has already been brought to your attention by others, during a
radio interview of me on July 10 on KFAB Radio 1110 by talk-show host
Scott Voorhees, Voorhees made a comment that I challenged on the spot.

It was in reaction to the fact that the University of Nebraska at
Omaha CRU Christian group had networked with my group, the UNO Secular Student Alliance, last semester to put on a highly regarded debate. Voorhees declared, “You know why the Christian kids helped you out in your debate? Because atheist chicks are easy. And a lot of them are Goth and hot.” (You can listen to this remark at http://bit.ly/NmcGaG starting at the 14:16 mark.)

In addition to this being another example of the right-wing war on
women, it also impugns the motives of the campus Christian group,
suggesting that their cooperation was insincere. I called this sexist
remark disgusting at the time (after which I was immediately
disconnected). Now, in response to numerous requests for further
action, I wish to readdress the matter.

Reasonable people might have expected the UNO administration to act
swiftly and decisively in criticizing this remark against legitimate
UNO campus groups—especially after I brought it to the
administration’s attention last week. And not merely because the
remark attacked UNO students, both Atheist and Christian, but because
that broadcast also challenged UNO’s institutional reputation. After
all, Director of University Relations Tim Kaldahl appeared on the same
show and had to put up with attacks against UNO for hosting the fourth
annual Midwest Freethought Conference. Voorhees openly questioned
whether the university was still worthy of public support. And KFAB
pays UNO for rights to use the “N” logo and to broadcast Nebraska
football. The station calls itself “the Home of the Huskers,” which is
the UNO team. (For reference, KFAB is listed on the University website
as the Omaha affiliate for Nebraska football at:http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=52 and,
on the KFAB website, the “N” logo is displayed on the homepage and at:http://www.kfab.com/pages/Huskers.html .)

In an effort to resolve this internally, I talked with Tim Kaldahl,
spoke with Charlene Russel in the campus Equal Access and Diversity
office, communicated with Nancy in the Chancellors office, and sent an
email directly to the chancellor. I have also discussed the matter
with other student leaders on campus.

Adam Maley, immediate past president of the UNO Veterans Student
Organization, said: “This radio personality challenges a socially
unpopular category of people and, rather than discuss the issues, uses
prejudicial and disgusting stereotypes to distract.”

UNO Council for Humanist Thought President John Powers said: “Scott
Voorhees…clearly does not understand the issues of the growing local
secular community and the struggles of living an atheist or agnostic
life.”

Haili Copas-Starke, immediate past director for the Women’s Resource
Center, another student-run organization at UNO, showed her support
for the UNO SSA by saying, “Religion is a good background to formulate
your morals but it’s not the only method, and society allows for you
to do that without the guidance of religion.”

The UNO SSA provides valuable support for nontheistic UNO students, as Nicole Miller, the current UNO SSA president, noted when she said:
“The Secular Student Alliance has helped me grow on a personal level,
where I’ve made lifelong friends, have become more open to talk about
the issues. Especially family problems with coming out as atheist. I
feel like I’m making a difference in my community.”

In the wake of this reaction, I must ask why the UNO administration
has so far declined comment on an affiliated radio station’s slur that
is prejudicial to UNO students and the university itself—and this in
the face of a reaction across the Internet. (Just Google the phrase
“atheist chicks are easy” and see the online response, which is now in
the thousands of hits when, at the time of the broadcast last week, it
only garnered two.)

As an atheist, my moral compass compels me to stand up to Voorhees’
dehumanizing remark. Is it too much to ask UNO’s administration to
reconsider this opportunity to do the same? Radio KFAB [a member of Clear Channel: http://www.kfab.com/pages/voorhees.html] and need to hear, in no uncertain terms, that UNO finds the remark in question unacceptable. And UNO needs to demand a retraction and an apology.

There are many problems here, especially with President James B. Milliken of the University of Nebraska Omaha. Milliken’s greatest failure is his lack of professionalism. A President of a University works for students, faculty, and contributors. Milliken showed no interest in addressing any student complaint; it was imperative to discuss the UNO chapter of the Secular Student Alliance and the travesty of KFAB. When I made inquiry of Mr. Hoffman concerning the UNO Secular Student Alliance, asking for statistics on the organization, Mr. Hoffman responded as follows:

1. Female to male ration is 50/50. One of the core issues that atheists face is that there is a lack of female participation in the community at large; however in my student organization we were able to overcome this social obstacle by reaching out to the LGBT and women student organizations to pool membership during weekly meetings to increase female participation.

2. GPA. This information is not gathered by the group due to privacy concerns. I understand this information might have been useful in retrospect, but it honestly was more important during last semester that we encourage civic participation in community events and outreach and network with other student organizations campus wide.

3. Subject field of studies: a large portion of [the membership] field of study were in the Information Technology majors, Political Science majors, Education majors, and Sociology majors.

Much of the problem for fair-play and courtesy not extended by Voorhees or the radio station lays directly with University of Nebraska Omaha President James B. Milliken. The UNO President is a product of Nebraska education through the bachelor’s degree. Milliken took a BA in English (1979) University of Nebraska and a J.D. degree in law from New York University School of Law. He is married and has two sons and one daughter. He was a legislative aide to US Congressional Representative Virginia Dodd Smith (R-NE) from 1975-1991; she was born in Randolph, Iowa, of Methodist parents, and buried in Shenandoah, IA. Her main stand was for “a firm belief in God” and insisted that those who worked with her and for her affirm the same devotional allegiance. This anointing undoubtedly carried over to her aide and his later attitude on human rights, enshrining bigotry and pardoning bigots in the name of religion. The tragedy of Milliken is the fact that he is unfit to be a university president since he does not support the civil liberties and human rights of all students.

After a lynching in Omaha, the KKK burns the body of its victim.

The Nebraska KKK, that included both men and women of all age groups, was strong especially York County where most of the anger was against new immigrants and Roman Catholics, but those the citizens feared were atheists were treated the most harshly through the 1930s. In 1921, the first Nebraska Klavern opened in Omaha with an agenda of expanding the anti-black plank to include Roman Catholics and all immigrants and soon included “free-thinkers and atheists”. That year, the KKK claimed over 1,000 members in Nebraska, 45,000 the following year and 4 million nationally by 1925. A parade in York claimed 2,000 marchers, while local organizations formed in nearly a dozen cities statewide.

Robert Henderson (KKK member and Nebraska State Trooper) 2012

Today the Invisible Empire in Nebraska has a toll-free phone number, a website and even an official T-shirt. Nebraska’s KKK even has one of its own on the Nebraska State Troopers roster: Robert Henderson. Its special targets are Blacks, immigrants, “non-believers” and gay women whom, the KKK argues, can be cured of homosexuality by being raped.

The KKK continues to be a part of Nebraska with many being the backbone of the Tea Party movement. The KKK also continues to be strong in Iowa (around Boone and Ames), especially in Shenandoah, IA.

Mephistopheles head for Innocents Society (University of Nebraska Omaha)

While a student at the University of Nebraska, Milliken was a member of the semi-secret Society of Innocents founded on April 24, 1903, through the efforts of notable University of Nebraska alumni, including George Condra and Roscoe Pound (read: Knoll, Robert E. (1995). Prairie University: a History of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: Alumni Association of the University of Nebraska). The secret society is composed of thirteen men and women, who hold secret rituals and rites in a secret meeting room, and are pledged to combat “evil” that includes “non-belief” and has as its symbol for evil a red-head Devil.

108 Union (University of Nebraska) Innocents Society

The “innocent” nature of the society’s members paled in 1892 when a bell was stolen from a Seward, Nebraska church in 1892 by members of Delta Tau Delta and Phi Delta Theta fraternities. The fraternities used the bell to award the winning football team at the end of the established Nebraska-Missouri football match. This practice stopped when Nebraska entered the Big Ten Conference and began to play against the University of Iowa. Some of the thirteen turned to piety, and a few organized to stand guard against those who would deny Jesus or god.

James B. Milliken, President of University of Nebraska at Omaha

Unfortunately for the multicultural environment of University of Nebraska at Omaha, James B. Milliken has held his post since August 2004. Coming from North Carolina, an arch-conservative state, Milliken holds faculty appointments in the College of Law (a graduate of New York University School of Law where he was a Root-Tilden Scholar. He practiced law on Wall Street before joining the University of Nebraska in 1988, and appears to be out-of-touch with any enacted civil rights legislation, starting with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title 29 § (subsection) 1604.11 that forbids sexual harassment including comments that are sexual in nature as Voorhees breathed–or any unwanted verbal assault), University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha.

The Society of Innocents was named after the thirteen popes who took the name of Innocent at the time of their elevation to the papal throne. A look at the 13 Innocents who sat on the papal throne reveals more than one would suspect.

Innocent II (died 24 September 1143) was an unpopular choice and a second pope was declared on the same day, leading to a schism. This brought variations within doctrine and “purity of thought.” When Innocent II was able to sweep control of the church, to remove the remnants and evil consequences of the schism, Innocent II called the Tenth Ecumenical Council, the Second of the Lateran. Rigid adherence to Innocent’s interpretation was demanded (read: Denzinger, Heinrich Joseph Dominicus. Enchiridion symbolorum: definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum a conciliis oecumenicis et summis pontificibus emanarunt. (10th ed., Freiburg, Deutschland: Br. Herder, 1907; in Latin; there is a Greek edition (coordinated by Adolf Schönmetzer; Heinrich Denzinger) published Barcinone [u.a.] : Herder, 1967), p. 167; my preferred edition is published in Wirceburgi: Stahel, 1856).

Innocent III

Innocent III (died 1216), elevated the role and rule of Rome over that of the empire, proscribed truth, and declared for blind obedience to the faith. Questioning religion or any tenet was forbidden, disbelievers, apostates and heretics were punished, and those who attacked atheists were praised. Innocent is best remembered for convoking the Fourth Lateran Council, which he solemnly opened on November 15, 1215. It was by far the most important council of the Middle Ages. Not only did he push through a general crusade to the Holy Land, under papal pressure the council issued seventy reformatory decrees, the first of which was a creed (Firmiter credimus), against the Albigenses (the Synod of Orléans (1022) required those who did not follow official church teachings to suffer the extreme penalty of death) and Waldenses (early Protestants who still exist in Rome), in which the term “transubstantiation” received its first ecclesiastical sanction. By silencing dissent, the church in Rome reached its zenith. Weber, Nicholas. “Albigenses.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907.

Innocent IV (1180/1195-1254) commissioned Dominicans and Franciscans to add torture to the Inquisition

Innocent IV allowed many abuses, provided they served to strengthen his position against the Hohenstaufen. He was known for strict literalism, but did commission acts of charity, especially by recognizing the Poor Clares in 1253. A Short biography of Innocent IV was written by his physician, Nicolas de Corbia. It was published by Muratori, Lodovico Antonio (1723-1751). Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Milano, Italia: Mediolani, ex typographia Societatis Palatinae. III.1, 589-593; in Latin.

Innocent V originally was Fra (Guido di Pietro) Angelico

Innocent V (died 1276) attempted to reconcile all conflicting interpretations of faith and religion, as the conflicting words of Jesus compared to the alleged writings of “Paul” who never met the Jesus of the New Testament at any time, created hostilities and led to bloodbaths. Innocent V was the first Dominican pope who sought to reconcile Guelphs and Ghibellines (the families of the mythical Romeo and Juliet) in Italy, restored peace between Pisa and Lucca, and mediated between Rudolph of Hapsburg and Charles of Anjou. He likewise endeavored to consolidate the union of the Greeks with Rome concluded at the Council of Lyons. Read more: Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne (op. cit.). Vol. II (Paris, 1892), 457; Mothon, Joseph-Pierre (1896). Vie du bienheureux Innocent V (Roma, Italy: Impr. Vaticane; in French); Bourgeois, Thomas (1899). Le Bienheureux Innocent V (Paris, France: P. Lethielleux; in French)

Innocent VII died in 1406, and was a part of the Great Schism. Innocent VII taught jurisprudence at Perugia and Padua before going to Rome to become a tax collector for the church and later to enforce conformity within the religious community. While acclaimed for observable piety, Innocent VII was primarily recognized as an able manager of financial affairs. He had no control over his biological family, with his nephews killing several cardinals, an act he was unable to stop. A weak operator who made promises he did not keep, Innocent VII did nothing to stop the schism that he had originally (before being elected pope) promised to do even if it meant setting aside his tiara for harmony. He would not give up that crown. Vita Innocentii VII in Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, Louis, op. cit. Vol. II (Paris, 1892), 508-10, 531-3, 552-4; and in Muratori, Lodovico Antonio (1723-1751), Rerum Italicarum Scriptores ab anno 500 ad 1500, Vol. III (Milano, 1723-51), ii, 832 sq.; Brand, “‘Innocenzo VII ed il delitto di suo nipote Ludovico Migliorati” in Studi e Documenti di Storia e Diritto, XXI (Roma: Editore: Tipografia poliglotta della S. c. de prop. fide, 1900; in Italian); Bliemetzrieder, Franz Plazidus (1904), Das Generalkonzil im grossen abendlandischen Schisma (Paderborn: F. Schöningh; in German); Idem, Die Konzilsidee unter Innocenz VII. und König Ruprecht von der Pfalz in Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktiner und dem Cistercienser Orden, Vol. XXVII (Brünn, 1906, in German), pp 355-68

Innocent IX died in 1591. He was another lawyer turned cleric who misgoverned universities but ultimately was elected pope. He was named Patriarch of Jerusalem, a see far older than Rome, and became pope two months before his death. He prohibited the alienation of church property, and in a consistory held on 3 November, 1591, informed the cardinals of his intention of constituting a reserve fund to meet extraordinary expenses. His death stopped this from happening. Read: Ranke, Leopold von (1889) Die römischen Päpste, II (9th ed., Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1889), 150, tr. Fowler, II (London, 1901), p. 157.

Innocent X (c. 1650)

Innocent X died in 1655, yet another lawyer more concerned with appearance than assisting others, especially minorities who felt the wrath of the unfettered church, but became pope despite his numerous shortcomings. Innocent X’s policies were dictated by France in the person of the Queen’s lover and totally, carnally corrupt cardinal Mazarin. Innocent X was totally dependent on Donna Olimpia Maidalchini, the wife of his deceased brother, which Vatican gossip had the pope as one of her many lovers, but that is gossip–as the only

Cardinal Camillo Astalli (later known as “Red Beard”)

true “attachment with affection” was for a young boy. For a short time Donna Olimpia’s influence had to yield to that of the youthful and beautiful Camillo Astalli (1616-1663), a distant relative of the pope, whom Innocent raised to the cardinalate for various reasons, and while Innocent X did nothing scandalous with Maidalchini, there is doubt about his innocence with the young cardinal who was known as a “sexual rogue for a price”. When the youth became a problem in the Vatican, the pope lamented being deprived of Donna Olimpia and summoned her to return to the Vatican. At her instance Astalli was deprived of the purple and removed from the Vatican. Ciampi, Ignazio (1878). Innocenzo X Pamfili e la sua corte (Roma : Coi tipi dei Galeati in Imola; in Italian); Ranke, Ludwig von (1906), Die römischen Päpste, tr. Foster, Vol. II (London, 1906), pp. 321-9; Palatius, John (1688). Gesta Pontificum Romanorum, IV (Venedig: Parè, pp. 571-94, in Latin); and, Bargrave, John (). Pope Alexander the Seventh and the College of Cardinals edited by James Craigie Robertson ([Westminster, England]: Printed for the Camden Society, 1867; reprint; 2009); and, Herman, Eleanor (2008). Mistress of the Vatican : the true story of Olimpia Maidalchini, the secret female pope. New York, NY : William Morrow; in English.

Innocent XI (d. 1689)

Innocent XI died in 1689, and was known for most of his adult life for his devotion to duty. He studied law under the Jesuits at Como, and worked to feed the poor during a period of serious famine. He was rigid in his private life and when he was elected to the papacy, he turned all his efforts towards reducing the expenses of the Curia, passing strict ordinances against nepotism among the cardinals whom he expected to live as parsimonious as he did. He was not successful in that demand. During his pontificate Louis XIV posing as a zealot of Catholicism, revoked the Edict of Nantes (in 1685) and inaugurated a barbarously bloody persecution of the Protestants and “non-believers”. Louis XIV followed many of the messages penned by Martin Luther who called for the killing of Jews: “What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying, reviling and blasphemies. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. ….

Title page of “On the Jews and their Lies” by Martin Luther (1543)

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly, and I myself was unaware of it, will be pardoned by God. …. Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. …. Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. …. Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. …. Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews” (Luther, Martin (1543). Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies), 65,000 words and was the antecedent for Adolf Hitler’s holocaust; first original edition in the private library of this author; it is in Luther’s Werke Vol. 47, pp. 137-306, in German). Innocent XI was no less intent on preserving the purity of the Roman Catholic faith and morals among the clergy and the faithful and insisted on a thorough education and an exemplary life of the clergy, passed strict ordinances concerning the modesty of dress among Roman ladies, put an end to the ever-increasing passion for gambling by suppressing the gambling houses at Rome, and forbade the questioning of the existence of god (both attacking secularists, agnostics, and atheists). At the same time the pontiff condemned sixty-eight Quietistic propositions (establishing psychical self-annihilation and a consequent absorption of the soul into the Divine Essence even during the present life) that were associated with Jansenism (none of its doctrines defy any Christian dogma nor standard Roman Catholicism, but were internalized without the need for a clergy—which most accepted). Read: Immich, Max (1990). Papst Innocenz XI, 1676-1689. (Berlin, Deutschland: Speyer & Peters; in German); Michaud, Eugène, Louis XIV et Innocent XI d’après les correspondances diplomatiques inédites du Ministère des affaires étrangères de France. (4 vols., Paris, France: G. Charpentier, 1882-83) written from Gallican standpoint; Gérin, Charlres (1876), Le Pape Innocent XI et la révolution anglaise de 1688 in Revue des questions historiques, XX (Paris, 1876); Idem, Le Pape Innocent XI et la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes, ibidem, XXIV (1878); Idem, Le pape Innocent XI et l’Election de Cologne en 1688, ibidem, XXXIII (1883); Idem, Le Pape Innocent XI et le siège de Vienne en 1683, ibidem, XXXIX (1886); Fraknói, Vilmos; Innocentius XI. Papa.; Jekel, Peter(1902), Papst Innocenz XI. und Ungarns Befreiung von der Türkenherrschaft (Freiburg i.B. : Herder, in German) translated into German from the Hungarian by JEKEL (Freiburg, Deutschland: im Br Herder); Giussani, A. (1901). Il conclave di Innocenzo XI (Como, n.p.).

Innocent XII

Innocent XII died in the year 1700. Innocent XII was basically known for his acts of charity. Towards the poor, whom he called his nephews, he converted part of the Lateran into a hospital for the needy an act that led numerous cardinals and bishops to denounce him as “offending Our Lord Jesus the Christ” who many saw as a secret capitalist, erected numerous charitable and educational institutions, and completed the large court-house “Curia Innocenziana”. Today it serves as the Italian House of Commons (Camera dei Deputati). In many ways Innocent XII was like Jimmy Carter who rejected the wealthy and brought aspersion upon his honor while, at the same time, creating his habitat for humanity, arguing that all people deserved a home and a hearth. Innocent XII required of all of his attendants and those who followed him to perform corporal acts of kindness and mercy: to build homes for those who had no shelter, feed the hungry, and assist in ways of achieving peace–with his pontificate being the first in hundreds of years–nearly a millennium–where any pope followed the teachings of the Jesus of the New Testament. Read: Ranke, Leopold von, Die römischen Päpste, tr. Foster, History of the Popes, II (London, 1906), 425-7; Klopp, Onno. Hat der Papst Innocenz XII im Jahre 1700 dem Könige Karl II von Spanien gerathen, durch ein Testament den Herzog von Anjou zum Erben der spanischen Monarchie zu ernennen in Historisch-Politische Blätter, LXXXIII (Munich, 1879), 25-46 and 125-150.

Innocent XIII

Innocent XIII died in 1724. Noble born, the son of Carlo II, Duke of Poli, was a nepotist of the worse order, where his nepotism filled churches, abbeys, priories, convents, and courts. When he was enthroned as Innocent XIII the new pope elevated his brother to the cardinalate, but did not allow his revenues to exceed 12,000 scudi as had been stipulated by Pope Innocent XII. Few Roman Catholic leaders listened to him or his numerous protestations, but he was hailed by the poor and homeless for using church wealth to help a limited number of poor. He had no control over his cardinals, the majority of whom were licentious and vitriolic in their dealings with others, with many being great “whore-mongers” with women and children. Read: Mayer, Max Ernest von Ritter, Papstwahl Innocenz’ XIII (Wien: Wilhelm Braumüller); [NA] Leben Papst Innocentii XIII ([Cologne] 1724); Michaud, La fin de Clément XI et le commencement du pontificat d’Innocent XIII in Internationale theologische Zeitschrift, Vol. V, pp. 42-60, 304-331.

The one thing that the thirteen Innocents had in common was a basic sense of charity that was frequently eclipsed by their failure to aid human or civil rights. However, human and civil rights were not considered during the formative years of the church, and played no basic role, any more than they do under the German pope Josef Ratzinger (Benedict XVI).

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan (d. 2012)

What the popes did was attack non-believers and those who questioned ecclesiastical authority or clerical interpretations and erroneous translations, demanding a rigid belief in a god who did not change with time and a church that kept regressing back into the dark past of ignorance, rejection of science, and silencing dissent. This has continued throughout the history of the Roman Catholic church that still ignores the warning of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan. Before the prelate died on August 31, 2012, he gave his last interview. Printed in the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera [The Evening Courier], Martini said: “Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous. … A woman is abandoned by her husband and finds a new companion to look after her and her children. A second love succeeds. If this family is discriminated against, not just the mother will be cut off but also her children.” He sought justice for all, the embrace of the sciences, and ending of past rituals and pompous clothes for priests and prelates.

Why any public school would name a secret society (much alone tolerate one) to be named after nefarious and odiously opportunistic pontiffs is difficult to understand. However, the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s maintenance of this secret society based on the thirteen popes says a lot about the psychology of today in Omaha: rigid, raw rejection of those who do not conform, the unwillingness of lackluster and craven administrators and leaders to treat all equal and see to the equality of all, and the quest for personal glory over the human and civil rights of marginalized people. UNO, in this instance, has exposed its darkest side and is obviously in tune with Voorhees and those who would cast aspersions on its students.

George Washington was among the most outspoken for religious freedom and the rejection of religion. In a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island on August 18, 1790, George Washington wrote: “The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that [sic: who] another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support … May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one [sic] shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

The United States of America was never founded as a Christian nation. No single religion was given preference (Amendment 1). This was expressly declared in Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1797. Article 11 states: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility [sic], of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never have entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan [sic] nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

The tenth president, John Tyler, in an 1843 letter: “The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent — that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma, if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political Institutions.” (Robert Seager II (1963). And Tyler too: A Biography of John and Julia Gardiner Tyler, Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, p. 109).

Ignoring America’s past history and the laws of the USA, Voorhees sounded out against those without a belief structure, casting aspersion on atheists as only being “hot” (implying easy sexual targets) without rational capacities. This rank denigration of others shows the true psychology of the radio personality to be marginal (ref. Klein, Kristen M.; Apple, Kevin J.; Kahn, Arnold S. (2011). “Attributions of blame and responsibility in sexual harassment: Reexamining [sic] a psychological model.” doi: 10.1007/s10979-009-9216-6. Law and Human Behavior, Vol 35(2), April, 92-103; Leskinen, Emily A.; Cortina, Lilia M.; Kabat, Dana B. (2011). “Gender harassment: Broadening our understanding of sex-based harassment at work.” doi: 10.1007/s10979-010-9241-5, Law and Human Behavior, Vol 35(1), February, 25-39; Krings, Franciska; Facchin, Stéphanie (2009). “Organizational justice and men’s likelihood to sexually harass: The moderating role of sexism and personality.” doi: 10.1037/a0013391Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 94(2), March, 501-510), and for the University of Nebraska at Omaha to be led by a faulty president who does nothing to protect and support his students (ref. Leonard, H. Skipton; Goff, Maynard (2003). “Leadership development as an intervention for organizational transformation: A case study.” doi: 10.1037/1061-4087.55.1.58. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Vol 55(1), 58-67; Townsend, Joellyn; Phillips, James S.; Elkins, Teri J. (2000). “Employee retaliation: The neglected consequence of poor leader–member exchange relations.” doi: 10.1037/1076-8998.5.4.457, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol 5(4), October, 457-463; Michener, H. Andrew; Tausig, Mark (1971). “Usurpation and perceived support as determinants of the endorsement accorded formal leaders.” doi: 10.1037/h0030998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 18(3), June, 364-372), it is impossible to say more than the UNO administrative soundness is lacking and pathetic. Neither Voorhees nor Milliken have anything in common with the founding fathers of the USA but instead are as vile and full of feigned fraternity as Pat Robertson and Michelle Bachmann in their drive to drive out democracy and install a theocratic state based on dominionism. Dominionism is as bad as is developing under the dictatorial reign of terror of Vladimir Putin and Patriarch of Moscow Kirill whose shrill “there is an attack on established values and the family” matches the outcry of racists who hide behind the robes of the new KKK and neo-Nazi parties in the USA who bear the name of the Tea Party.

The words Jesus (Latin: Iesus; Hebrew: ישוע; Arabic: عيسى‎ Isa; Greek: Ἰησοῦς Iēsous born c. 7-2 BC/BCE and died c. 30–36 AD/CE) and Christ (ancient Greek: Χριστός, Khristós, meaning ‘anointed’ as a king; (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ, ; Aramaic: משיחא, Greek: Μεσσίας, Arabic: المسيح‎, al-Masīḥ, Latin: Messias. It is a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Māšîah), for Messiah) only of late became the name of a man recorded in the Christian New Testament. Christ was a given title, not a last name.

Originally, the word Messiah had two meanings: warrior and final prophet. They are not the same nor do they mean the same thing. The title Christ was never used by the man Jesus in the New Testament. It has always been used by others: e.g. Matthew 1:1, 1:18; Mark 1:1; John 1:17; 17:3; 9:22; Mark 9:40; Luke 2:11; 22:2. As a title it was bestowed on the New Testament Jesus by Peter, a non-relative and a rather minor disciple, in Luke 9:20.

The engraving reads DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS. It is interpreted to mean either “by Christ the magician” or “the magician by Christ”. Bowl c. 200 BCE.

We have actual artifacts that the word Christ appeared at least by 200 BCE and was always accompanied by the message “the magician” and was the leader of a group of wise men and a conjurer of White Magic. The 200 BCE bowl has numerous subsequent bowls that are found as late as 100 CE, and in each they are associated with a magician titled The Christ and used for magical ceremonies.

The bowl, recently found, is very similar to one depicted on or with two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual. This ritual was common around 3000 BCE and sometimes included the drinking of blood, but generally was used to hold wine that all soothsayers shared as a “common cup”. The bowl is not that old, and there are many problems with its too-clear inscription after being under water for 2000 years: it does not show the wear of time. Der Spiegel noted in an article, that Chrestos was a rather popular Greek name at that time: “Chrestos war in Griechenland ein gebräuchlicher männlicher Vorname”, erklärt der Historiker Manfred Clauss aus Frankfurt am Main, “das muss nichts mit Jesus zu tun haben.” It would have nothing to do with a New Testament Jesus, for the translation is: “Chrestos was commonly a man’s given name in Greece,” explains the historian Manfred Clauss of Frankfurt am Main. “That need not have anything to do with Jesus.” In this instance, the name Jesus would be more of a name used in soothsaying or some magical ritual, such as attempting to raise the dead (singularly or as a group).

It is a weak argument to say that chrestianos and christianos are interchangeable, as Tertullian registered disappointment, if not anger, when he was called a chrestianos. Tertullian was abrupt when he reiterated that he is a “Christian” not a “Chrestian.” (Tertullian, Nat. 1.3.8-9).

The engraving might be a dedication, or present, made by certain a “Chrestos“: a group that became popular in Rome, migrating from Alexandria during the reign of Julius Cesar. They were primarily a passive people, and entered Rome with a firm belief in an afterlife that included respect for the dead by burying each person under a headstone.

This headstone translates as:

“D.M.” (is an abbreviation of “Diis Manibus”)

“to the gods of theunderworld”

[The following text is difficult to interpret as it is missing “essential” words, and requires an interpretation of M. (and) T. that would mean]

father/fathers of Drusus, dedicate the tomb to his/their first born son

who lived for 42 years and seven days

and Faustus, the son/slave/freedman of Antonia

the daughter/wife of Drusus, bought the right for the urn [with cremation ashes] to be putin a certain columbarium or other burial place from Jucundus, the Chrestian.

This is unlike the militant christianos who argued for a warrior god who would cleanse the world. It is based on the marginalia of Matthew 10:34 that would be later incorporated into the gospel. It has been suggested that it belongs to a possible religious association called Ogoistais, but the term or name christianos does not appear anywhere before the reign of Nero who wrongfully has been indicted for supposedly accusing (approximately 64 CE), the Chrestianos of starting the fire that “burned [the wooden ghettos of] Rome, but then it was a perjorative word (1 Peter 4:16).

Chaldees – map of modern day Iraq with Ur of the Chaldees pointed out (where Noah and Abraham allegedly came before invading Canaan)

The word “Ogoistais” could be connected to known religious groups that worshipped early Greek and Egyptian gods and goddesses, such as Hermes, Athena and Isis. Isis was a popular deity throughout the Roman world, and is at times related to or synonymous with Asherah, Astarte, and other deities. Her devotion was part of the word that Hittite mercenaries, known as IS-RA-EL-ites, later used to distinguish themselves from other mercenaries as they were a more violent group most coming from the Chaldees (Iraq from which the mythological figures of Abraham and Noah come in quest of conquering Canaan–the reason for Noah’s infamous curse) and parts of India. There are numerous records of ancient Jews being warrior mercenaries throughout Egypt, numbering more than 30,000 at the time of Ptolemy I (Ludovici Mendelssohn schedis usus edidit Paulus Wendland (1900). Aristeae ad Philocratem Epistola etc. (Leipzig, Deutschland: Teubner § 13)

If it is a part of another cult, then the “word” could actually be a mélecture for ὁ γεύστης, “the one who tasted”? This would preclude it being salted, or a disk that would come from a “pot” but would rather be a ceremonial cup from which one would sample wine. Much of the wine would be “new wine” and invites a remembrance of the myth of the drunken state of Noah and Lot, both of whom were intoxicated and had sex in defiance of their own prohibitions.

Noah is drunk on new wine and naked

Noah is accused in the Bible of being drunk on wine and cursing Canaan (his grandson) without giving a reason, but most likely it was because of masturbation that stopped further fathering of warriors at that time, as the Bible clearly states that Noah was drunk, which later Apiru (Hebrews) would declare to be the “sin” of seeing a parent naked (Genesis 9:20-27: ). In the original text the word is used as exposing his genitals, and naked means arouse and passion; nude, on the other hand, is a state of being, as with a child and denotes innocense, purity, and union with the divine).

Lot commits incest with his daughters (Genesis 19)

It is also from this place that Lot and Abraham come. Lot is an unwelcomed guest in the city of Sodom and refuses to register with the city council strangers who sneak into the town while the community was at war. Lot leaves with his two daughters and travels to another City of the Plain (Zoar) where he is equally unwelcomed and flees to a cave in the surrounding mountains. In the cave Lot falls drunk on new wine and then commits incest with his two of his four daughters “so that they preserved his seed within them” (Genesis 19:36). The two who were married stayed in Sodom and perished with their bridegrooms, indicating rather recent and even hurried marriages since foreigners (the daughters) were suspected of treason and passing secrets to the enemy (Gen. Rabbah 50:9; פרקי רבי אליעזר : מהדורה מדעית Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, ed. Higger, Michael, and Horowitz Chaim M. בית המדרש למורים של ישיבת ר’ יצחק אלחנן, New York : Horev, 704-708 [1944-1948] chap. 25). Lot was considered the evil one. According to the midrash (Tanhuma, Vayera 12), Lot, from the moment he moved into the city, in fact before that when he told his uncle Abraham that he wanted to move to the city, Lot was determined to dwell in Sodom because he wanted to engage in the licentious behavior of its inhabitants: drinking excessively, engaging in gluttony, ignoring the poor, and so forth (Ezekiel 16:49). His self-righteous, ego-centric and barbaric behavior becomes clear when the townspeople mill about his door, demanding that he hand over the angels. Instead of doing what Jewish law and custom required, Lot offers his daughters to the mob. The Rabbis observe that a man usually allows himself to be killed in order to save his wife and children, while Lot was willing to allow the townspeople to abuse his daughters. It is for this reason that the gods of Lot told Lot: By your life, the improper act that you intended to be done to your daughters will indeed be committed, but to you. Nowhere in the original scrolls is Lot defended for protecting the messengers, nor does it use in any instance the sentence of homosexuality. It shows that Lot was totally depraved and beyond true redemption. In another midrash (אגדת בראשית : מדרש אגדה על ספר בראשית ריכא (רב) … midrash agadah ʻal sefer Bereshit meyuḥas leha-tana Aba Arikha[ed. Buber, Salomon; מנורה, מכון למחקר ולהוצאת כתבי־יד וספרים עתיקים, New York : Menorah, Makhon le-mehkar ule-hotsaʼat kitve-yad u-sefarim ʻatikim, 719 [1959] 25:1) regards the daughters’ act as punishment for their father’s own sexual promiscuity.

It is not surprising that later Rabbis praised the two daughters who seduced their father, as they were “preserving his seed” and the future of Judaism (Pesikta Rabbati 42). This was common in those days, as civilization depended on children to become fighters and preserve the “houses” (states) that existed. Another part of the story shows that Genesis was written without consideration of the Laws of Moses in Leviticus, as there is no condemnation of nudity nor of seeing one’s father naked (Leviticus 18:6-18).

The legend of Lot indicates a less sophisticated group who observed rituals and rites but not in the manner intended. Devotees would have sipped wine and “tasted it” with the injunction “taste from this cup that is the blood of the deity” and it would limited to “true believers” who would “taste it” but not drink it as with the chrestianos in Alexandria.

Idrimi, king of the Hapiru

Guzzling wine and drinking blood has been the description of a blood-thirsty group was known as Apiru (or Habiru, an Egyptian word the sprung from pr.w). was the name given by various Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Ugaritic sources (dating between 1800 BCE and 1100 BCE). It is a reference to a group of people living as nomadic invaders in areas of the Fertile Crescent from Northeastern Mesopotamia and Iran (ancient Persia) to the borders of Egypt in Canaan and was the land fought over, plundered, and its villages destroyed by Abraham and Lot.

Cuneiform of Sumerian SA.GAZ and corresponding West Semitic ha-bi-ru

The Hittite forces called the IS[is]-Ra-El-ites after the goddess, the god of the sun, and the Lord over the family who was a minor god. The Apiru came from Sumeria or other parts bordering on the Fertile Crescent and are designated by a two-character cuneiform logogram transcribed as SA.GAZ that translates as ‘murderer, robber’, literally ‘one who smashes sinews’, is an original Sumerian nominal compound attested as early as ca. 2500 BC. It is later equated with Akkadian habbātu ‘plunderer, bandit’ and šaggāšu ‘murderer’ and are identified with the mythological judge known as Lot in Genesis. AS a group, are recorded in letters written by Canaanite scribes who had mastered the art of cuneiform-based characters or letters of the Akkadian language.

Scribes noted that Akkadian leaders complained about attacks by armed groups willing to fight and plunder for anyone who would given them war equipment including shields, swords, and sabers, food and drink provisions, and places where they could rest and quarter their lifestock. A second devious trick of the Apiru was for chieftains to sell of their wives as prostitutes (Genesis 12:10-20 and Genesis 20:1-7) and then reclaim them saying that their gods were offended; Abraham was a liar, pimp, and sacreligious at best, but in reality it is a story of no less than three men on a mission to establish a new kingdom and rule over it when they had sufficient people, Apiru, to conquer established cities and take control.

Apiru in hieroglyphs

Apiru were known as common thieves, their reputation advanced even by Egyptian pharaohs, such as Thutmose III. Amenhotep II boasted of capturing 89,600 people, of which 3,600 were Apiru, in his campaign in Canaan in 1420 BCE.

The Apiru were quick to take to magic rituals and employed “cups” to hold “the source of life”: usually blood or sperm that was consumed in “sacrifice to the gods of old”: the elohim (a plural noun that would be incorporated into the Hebrew language and theology: אֱלֹהִ֔ים). Ultimately the “source of life” became a ritual drinking of wine, with “new wine” reserved for leaders and gods.

Ancient Roman theater in the modern city of Alexandria, Egypt

The fact that the bowl was found at Alexandria in Egypt is significant. Alexandria was a cosmopolitan center where new and different faiths were always appearing while older faiths and religions were fading fast. Alexandria was a religious entreport, where faiths were constructed as rapidly as they appear and disappear on the universal landscape. Each faith claimed to be unique. Each religion was pure fraud, fashioned to make the priests and preachers rich at the expense of the poor, the miserable, the tired, who hoped for a better life–at least in the world to come.

The sole purpose of religions in Alexandria was to propose solutions to the problem of mortalkind, to offer a fleeting fancy of what might be but never had been. The mystery religions that rose faster than any Pentecostal group anywhere in the world offered a strangeness that was inviting and yet terrifying. It was a proto-Adventist colony looking for the return of any number of crucified saviors, a world that held many mysteries that could not be answered as education was denied. Education was only for a privileged few and not for the masses. If the laborers learned that they were being fooled into thinking that there was some being who truly looked after them but did not exist, the masses would rise up and throw off its predatory prelates prattling while dining on the fatted meats sacrificed to the gods (cp. 1 Corinthians 8:1).

The pontiffs of the ancient world were, without exception, claiming that the mysteries that true science could explain, such as earthquakes, storms, locust infestations, and more were the work of some god or goddess (both in singular and plural form). Myths like burning coals dropping from heaven, rivers running red with blood, and other curses were created for the gullible and enrichment of the priestly class (cp. Exodus 7:9, 8:2-4, 16 ff that can all be explained through natural science and the result of global warming) .

Education in the ancient world, universally, was weak at best, and was not meant nor permitted for everyone to experience. Religion presumed to have the answers to all questions asked and not asked. These magical answers were guarded by a self-serving priestly class that infected the thinking of many while robbing the poor for their “daily needs”.

Jesus: High Priest-King

Those who controlled the people were called priests or kings. Many had dual hierarchy being priest-kings who controlled religion and politics and some even proclaimed themselves professors (teachers) of science (with ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians arguing that the earth was flat as did Thallas and other Greeks, according to Aristotle (Burch, George Bosworth (1954). “The Counter-Earth”. Osirus (Saint Catherines Press) 11 (1): 267–294; cp. Rawlinson, George (1886). Ancient Egypt. London: T. Fisher Unwin, pp. 288-297). The Greek King installed on the Egyptian throne, Ptolemy and others, taught that the sun moved around the earth: Lawson, Russell M. (2004). Science in the ancient world: an encyclopedia. New York: NY: ABC-CLIO. pp. 29–30) and mathematics and philosophy but for the elevation and pseudo-intellectualism of an elite or royal class, for education was to advance fortunes not minds. Rote memorization was imperative for indoctrination; education was not meant to spur the conduct of inquiry as the city of Athens demanded when it called on Socrates to commit suicide matching any Christian family that attacks its members as being “different” or “queer” or “not Christian” leaving the attacked the singular option of suicide to escape their Christian or Mormon family’s bullying “in the name of Christ”.

The primary purpose of education was primitive: it was to indoctrinate not educate. All but the rulers were to follow unquestioning the dictates of kings and priests, whatever was commanded. It is the very heart of the word “islam” (الإسلام‎ an active participle) that enjoins all to total submission.

All civilizations held the belief that their deity or his profit if it was paternalistic and patriarchal would be sacrificed so that they might live (either in this world or the next, and from it came the invention of an afterlife).

The cults of Isis, mysteries of Mithra, Krishna in India, and early Christianity bear witness to this as each had a crucified savior who journeyed with a special discipleship of twelve (each member actually representing a sign in the constellation as the magi were star-gazers seeking out messages and answers for what was not know) to spread “the news” of regeneration, resurrection or ascension. Each enlightened leader would end up being sacrificed for the presumed transgressions of the people or world. This was promised in the performance of a ritual requiring the eating of some form of bread and drinking from the cup or bowl that held the “fluid of life”.

The problem is with the inscription on the bowl that was found in Alexandria. Many fervent Christians today argue that it stands for Jesus Christ, seeking any form of “biblical [a book that means “book” of any religion that is considered scripture] archaeology” that would confirm their beliefs. The faithful, the gullible read into the inscription “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” but that is in error. There are no spaces in ancient Greek.

Christ in ancient Greek was normally spelled XRICTOC. There are a few inscriptions where H is used. However, XPHCTOC is also an adjective meaning ‘excellent’, ‘meek’, ‘useful’, ‘noble’. It is the antecedent for Chrestos and for his following Chrestianos. The Christ who was meek and mild, who invited little children to come to him, who had time for the weak and weary, the homeless and destitute, those who knew hunger or thirst, would not be the Christ of the church when it was created by the Emperor Constantine. This patient and tender Christ was added only as a reference point to give hope to the huddled masses, not as a real person but as a good story, to be replaced with the vengeful, hate-filled Jesus of Paul–a god only an emperor and warrior bishops could appreciate when they stood to gain armies and coin of the realm to build luxury churches and abodes while the poor suffered.

These facts, alone, significantly increases the number of interpretations of the inscription, as the O GOISTAIS may be a secret code for GOHC. GOHC means “charlatan” or “magician”, and are more in keeping with the Christos than the Chrestos. It refers, possibly, to a thief who cursed the magician (Christ) before his death–which would make sense grammatically as found in the phrase Gestas, through Christ [was saved or damned]; while some claim that the saved and repentent thief was Dismis, there is no record of the non-repentant thief in the imperially sanctioned canon being restored or taken to a special place of forgiveness and cleansing, but we still do not have all of the gospels and other writings that Constantine sent to the flames in fear that their content would lessen the faith, and more importantly the obedience, of the masses that he redefined as christianos. We do have the total Nag Hammadi scrolls or others still secreted in large earthen jars safely buried in the hills. They would be too controversial and too much like the exposure of the popes Innocent I-XIII who had little to offer but much to take.

The fact that the bowl was not made from any precious metal (gold or copper, and so forth) indicates that it was used by a small and impoverished community of magicians who had it created for one of two purposes. First, it was in this earthen bowl that special elixirs were concocted and mixed with wine to symbolize blood. To drink the potion would bring, it was hoped, the promise of eternal life. Second, the other possibility was that the bowl was created for a poor community that found poverty especially powerful when communicating with the gods who looked upon mortals as being made of clay or earth and thus creating a link between the two, especially if it contained some form of native hallucinogenic drug. Thus the Christos would proclaim, “Blessed are the poor” (Matthew 5:3), and continues to this day among Christians, who followed their ancient ancestors in hatred and venomous insults especially within the Roman Catholic Church and its Hitleresque attack on Liberation Theology (read here and here where the Roman Catholic Church under the mismanagement of Opus Dei Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne is destroying the nation of Peru), but that was not that way with Chrestos or chrestianos.

Jeweled chalice

The fact that the bowl was not fashioned from special substances or ornamentation shows that it was not used in mainline religious functions by more popular theologies, as compared with the jewel-encrusted cups found in today’s Orthodox, Catholic or some Protestant services. This gives a greater definition of the two groups in Rome: the chrestianos and the christianos.

The chrestianos came long before there were christianos. Chrestianos were an ancient people from Alexandria, Egypt, and were a people identified by the name based on their action. Originally they were a cosmopolitan class of people that included members from various parts of the world when the Roman Empire was founded. While legend has Rome founded on April 21, 753 BCE by twin brothers Romulus and Remus. Legends has it that they were born in 771 BCE and had a life similar to Cain and Abel. Romulus killed Remus after a quarrel, with Romulus being the first King of Rome. As King of Rome, Romulus created the foundation for what would be the Roman Empire, with Cesar Augustus being considered the first Roman emperor of what then was considered a republic in 27 BCE.

The Chrestianos were passive, caring, and considerate—the reasons for their downfall, as they became slaves (another definition of chrestianos) until sufficient time and abuse (especially by christianos) brought them to rebellion. It was the Christianos who were the violent, hot-tempered, self-righteous Pentecostalists who were determined to convert the world by force, intrigue and lies.

The word Chrestianos is a derivative of the adjective Chrestos. It is indicative, by definition of “that which is fit for use” and means “good”, “kindly”, “generous, “mild” and “pleasant”—the attributes that their leader Chrestos had and the message he delivered to those who would accept the rule of a secular prince or Cesar, “by rendering to Cesar that which belonged to Cesar, and to god that which belonged to god”. It is the word that the Hellenic Greeks used for their slaves who were “service oriented” or were “profitable” to their masters, and is copied in Romans 2:4: ἡ τοῦ πλούτου τῆς χρηστότητος αὐτοῦ καὶ τῆς ἀνοχῆς καὶ τῆς μακροθυμίας καταφρονεῖς, ἀγνοῶν ὅτι τὸ χρηστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ εἰς μετάνοιαν σε ἄγει to denote goodness (καλοσύνη), closely related to katachraomi: meaning to “use to the fullest extent.”

Metropolitan Bishop Nikolai of Plovdiv, Representative of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church

The authors of “Paul” were determined to keep the chrestianos subservient to meet their needs and desires much the same way that the unholy Inquisition of the Middle Ages and the unholy Synods in the East (Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece) are determined to wear golden miters and carry jeweled crosses on their chests as they roar out condemnation and curse those they find wanting, demanding that they be stoned to death as is so common in Bulgaria in the Mephistophelean metropolitan Plovdiv Bishop Nikolai who deliberately lied and added yet another falsehood to the Bible when he proclaimed: “The task of the Orthodox Church assigned by our God Jesus Christ himself, is to protect the moral and ethical principles of scripture”. More vicious and vitriolic than Nikolai is Father Evgeni Yanakiev from the town of Sliven and a member of the unholy Synod of Bulgaria.

Benedict XVI (2012)

While the Jesus of the New Testament wore the poorest clothing (Luke 9:58 f), and John the Baptist (יוחנן המטביל) lived nude as there was no church to tend to any physical needs, the priests and bishops from the days of Constantine I wore raiment shot with gold and sewn with precious stones from 325 CE to this day. Cnstantine’s “catholic [universal] church” became the richest institution in the known world, with abbeys and monasteries and churches laying mortmain (dead hand) and frankalmoin (gifts to god; cf. Henrici Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus, cp. Kirkalfy, A. K. R. (1962).Potter’s Historical Introduction to English Law and Its Institutions. London: Sweet and Maxwell, p. 212) over the worldly goods of those who died “in the faith” and remains in control of the coffers of people and nations (read here and here and here).

Chrestos has nothing in common with Christos. The latter is translated and defined as “one who has been anointed or smeared with chrisma that is a psychotropic unguent reserved for kings and people of special hierarchical rank. The original inclusion of Chrestos in the scrolls was a statement that Jesus was a slave to his father (Mark 14:35-36 35, Matthew 26:39, 42, Luke 22:42; the original source is the Gospel of Mark, the oldest gospel), and not a king (Mark 15:2, Luke 23:3, which Jesus of the New Testament never claimed), but subjected individual will to one higher (not equal to as Constantine I pushed through his obliging bishops in their creation of the fabricated Abaddon Nicene Creed). The role of Constantine I was well known among his subjects: that he would be emperor-pontiff- priest and god (cf. Paul Stephenson (2009). Constantine: Roman Emperor, Christian Victor. Chapter 11 notes: The Emperor established and enforced orthodoxy for domestic tranquility and the efficacy of prayers in support of the empire).

It is easy to find a reference to the Chrestianos even in the forgery of Titus 3:1-4: Ὑπομίμνησκε αὐτοὺς ἀρχαῖς ἐξουσίαις ὑποτάσσεσθαι, πειθαρχεῖν, πρὸς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν ἑτοίμους εἶναι, 2μηδένα βλασφημεῖν, ἀμάχους εἶναι, ἐπιεικεῖς, πᾶσαν ἐνδεικνυμένους πραΰτητα πρὸς πάντας ἀνθρώπους. 3Ἦμεν γὰρ ποτε καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀνόητοι, ἀπειθεῖς. πλανώμενοι, δουλεύοντες ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ ἠδοναῖς ποικίλαις, ἐν κακίᾳ καὶ φθόνῳ διάγοντες στυγητοί, μισοῦντες ἀλλήλους. 4ὅτε δὲ ἡ χρηστότης καὶ ἡ φιλανθρωπία ἐπεφάνη τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ, where the various redactors use the word chreia (χρηστότης)in the form or meaning of “good works” in keeping with the chrestianos. The passage reads “all our people are to learn to occupy themselves in doing good works for their practical needs”: to be “good slaves who are useful to the community.” This is furthered in 2 Timothy 2:14f, where to be “saved” a person must prove to be “profitable” to the community: “There is to be no wrangling about words: all that this ever profits is the destruction of those who are listening. Do all you can to present yourself … as a man who has no cause to be ashamed of his work … Have nothing to do with pointless philosophical discussions…” as that would be outside of blind faith—but one that the later church of Constantine would give permission to follow in their “teachings”. Augustine of Hippo the frequent visitors to whores by whom he had a bastard he called Adeodatus, by this definition, was a heretic, as he was not following the rubric that to be saved, one had to remain silent, work hard and never think for oneself.

The chrestianos devolution comes with the invention of Paul and the release of the group-work Letters to the Corinthians, especially as seen in I Corinthians 9:12. The writers of Corinthians are blunt in stating that they have “sown spiritual things” and would “harvest your spiritual things”. This theft from the people is what led to the uprising of the Alexandrian chrestianos, the burning of the wooden huts in Rome, and the attack on the nobility and the presbyters who were using religion to enrich themselves. It was equal to the Greek masters ordering slaves to work, then harvest, and sell it for the enrichment of the owner (the future church that within one hundred years following its official creation by the Emperor in 325) is one of the richest institutions on the planet while the people fall deeper into debt and peonage until they have to beg for slop and remains from the fattened clergy as their bishops build monstrous churches, basilicas, monasteries, etc. that house their god like the ancient temples housed their deities as the poor lived in thatched huts that were burned in sport by rogue illiterate nobility. Their sole claim to any respect was having their name changed to christianos: bound slaves to a leader of fiction to justify the existence of a church that was birthed from a foul womb of faith.

11th century forgery of Tacitus’ “Annals”

It was the chrestianos who Tacitus was referring to in his Annals Book XV (the earliest known extant manuscript of Tacitus was not written until the 11th century CE at the monastery of Monte Cassino; it is kept in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana). Medieval forgeries have the chrestianos changed into christianos in an effort to proclaim a group following the traditional Jesus of the New Testament, but this a Latinized koine Greek word with a meaning and etymology wholly separate from Christianoi. The fabrication is seen in this line auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat…Christus, which is to be translated as from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus …

The gross inaccuracy lies in the mention of Pilate as ‘procurator,’ when in fact Pilate was prefect of Judea. Tacitus himself had risen through the magisterial ranks to the status of proconsul, and therefore would have had a precise knowledge of the proper terminology as well as the succession of administrators. Even more absurd is that none of the early Christian writers, as later redacted and/or defined by the apologists make any mention of Tacitus.

Tacitus, Annales, XV.44 with marginalia

Tacitus refers to the chrestianos, not the christianos in his Annals XV:44 as being the vandals who set fire to Rome, and for their arson suffered numerous indignities and ultimate death. While references to Tacitus blog the church from the eleventh century to the present (with a rare citation from the eighth century redaction by zealous monks eager to improve on the original text and to give strength to their religious convictions), references to Tacitus’ claims of christianos do not appear before the eighth century CE, another clue as to their late creation.

Tacitus originally wrote “chrestianos” as can be seen with the erasure.

The obvious forgery that has not eluded any serious scholar of the Tacitus manuscript is in the erasure of the original ‘eta’ in Chrestianos and the differently-inked ‘íota’ has rather noticeable counterparts elsewhere in the literature of early Christianity. This was the appraisal of then-director of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Dr. Teresa Lodi, who wrote «The “e”, written originally, of which there are still signs left at the erased area [Italian: rasura], was changed into “i” taking out the upper circle and the horizontal line, while the remaining part was corrected, in my opinion, with the same ink and the same hand, towards an “i”. Another hand added the dot above the “i” and the hyphen between “i” and “s”». Dr. Ida Giovanna Rao, head of the manuscript office (Responsabile Ufficio Manoscritti) at Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana concurred, noting: «with a great effort [Italian: “con molta fatica”] it is possible to hypothesize that there was an “e” under the actual “i”, because the correction is really very clean and the only real pieces of circumstantial evidence—and not proofs—are the apex on the “i” and the hyphen linking “chri” with “stianos”, drawn with a less dark ink, identical to the one that makes the marginal correction [which is rather a bookmark, she says] “Christiani”, beyond to the “i”, which is overdrawn and darker than the other letters, in which the ink in general is more vanished.» She adds (in English): «By “con molta fatica” I mean that the correction was made with accuracy, so that it is not “visible a prima vista” [at first glance] but only if one looks exactly.»

Codex Sinaiticus (divided into four institutions) c. late fourth century

This is especially true in the Codex Sinaiticus, the world’s oldest extant manuscript of the alleged Christian ‘Holy Bible,’ handwritten in Egypt in the fourth century and contains three closely identical and equally obvious forgeries. Nearly all of these forgeries occur around or immediately after the Emperor Constantine I of the Eastern Roman Empire called his bad of cutthroat bishops to his Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. It was then that the Emperor, not any bishop, had the assembly proclaim that the Jesus of the New Testament was the “son of god”—an ancient title reserved for Horus of Egypt who was born to Isis and Osiris.

The term, name or title Christianos is of recent invention. The invention of Christian/Christians is used only three times in theNew Testament – twice in the Acts of the Apostles, and once in the First Epistle of Peter. Both are forgeries. In Acts 11:26 it is printed: “in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” In the oldest copies of these references, Acts 11:26 and 26:28, 1 Peter 4:16. In the earliest extant complete bible, Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century), the Greek words are even spelled out in the customary way, i.e. Chrestian/Chrestians that were hastily and clumsily reprinted Christian/Christians. Acts 26:27 is unaceptable as it is an insertion as noting the speech of Paul by his “intimate friend” Luke. Peter 4:16 “Christian” is used as a perjeroative and the writers of Peter use it to shore up the resolve of the faithful to persevere in the faith.

1 Peter 4:16 (forgery)

The invention of Christianos in the Bible is most easily seen in 1 Peter 4:16. The text, however, does not follow closely, and can be erased by a careful reading and studying of the original text of Acts 11:26.

Acts 11:26 (forgery)

Jesus is a shortening for the word Joshua: a nickname. At the time that Jesus allegedly lived and died, the name Jesus was extraordinarily common. It is true that there are numerous prophecies about a Messiah, but this warrior chief is never named. An historical Jesus is almost impossible to find in any historical record.

The established Church (the see at Constantinople that falsely claimed precedence over the one at Jerusalem and the other at Antioch) created the myth of a “forever virgin” Mary whereas in the original scrolls the word παρθενικός merely means “young girl” or “maiden” from the Hebrew word ‘almah that is taken from Isaiah 7:14 and means only that the maidenhead (the hymen) was broken and natural sperm entered to fertilize a released egg (ova). The Biblical Greek παρθένα became Παρθένος (parthenos)is incorrect and was pushed in the Septuagint (of LXX) by the Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian Orthodox communities without any legitimate support; it was followed by numerous editions until it was corrected in the Revised Standard Version. Her “perpetual virginity” or Mary being “ever virgin” (Ancient Greek: ἀειπαρθένος aeiparthenos) that is held by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and numerous Protestant churches and their original leaders (Calvin as noted on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1882). Extraits des manuaux du Conseil d Lausanne, 1512 á 1536, Publiés et annotés par Ernest Chavannes p. 426, but in the end neither supported it nor rejected it as recorded in McKim, Donald K. and Wright, David F. (1992) Encyclopedia of the Reformed faith. Louisville, KY, USA: Westminster/John Knox Press; Edinburgh, Scotland: Saint Andrew Press, page 237; Zwingli was more emphatic: Zwingli, Ulrich; Egli, Emil; Finsler, Georg; Zwingli-Verein, Georg; Zürich (1905). “Eini Predigt von der ewig reinen Magd Maria.” (in German). Huldreich Zwinglis sämtliche Werke. 1. Berlin, Germany: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn. p. 385; Luther as found in Pelikan, Jaroslav and Lehmann, Helmut T., eds. (1955). Luther’s Works (Philadelphia, PA, USA: Fortress Press, Vol. 43, p. 212); John Wesley as described by Coulter, A. C. (1964). John Wesley. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, p. 496) and Zwingli) is plain fraud, as is her exaltation into heaven nothing less than a plagiarism from ancient Egyptian theology that has Isis (known throughout Egypt as “Queen of Heaven”) rising to the sky to have the moon beneath her feet and stars above her head; for historical older antecedents, read here; for sacred texts read here).

The first mention that Mary was “ever virgin” does not appear before 374 CE, in the apologetics of Epiphanius. Mary had numerous children, by no less than two husbands (there is no historical nor Biblical proof that Joseph was an old man; cf. Tabor, James D. (2006). The Jesus Dynasty. New York, NY, USA: Simon & Schuster, pp. 65 ff) with Jesus’ brothers even acknowledged by the church historian Eusebius (Church History, II:23, III:19 relying, in part on John 2:12 patterned after Mark 3:31-32 and confirmed in Acts 1:14, cp. Mark 15:47, 16:1, cf. 6:3).

The account of Jesus in the New Testament is not the record preached by contemporary Christians of any affirmation, and distinctly not that of Pentecostals, Adventists, Southern Baptists or most evangelical extremists, Orthodox or Catholics of any branch. The New Testament Jesus dies one week before Passover, not the week of Passover. The original scroll of Luke (22:14-16) states that “I earnestly wanted to eat this Passover with you before I suffer but I won’t eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” A copyist inserted the word “again”—a word that appears nowhere in the early records. To argue that Jesus died during the Holy Week is not only bad scholarship, poor translation and inadequate interpretation, but shows the total lack of biblical knowledge of the history of the time, place, and political factors. This is buttressed by the comment that Jesus shared “a loaf of bread” (άρτοςor atros: ordinary bread that contains “leaven” or yeast) with his disciples, and not the bread of Passover. The bread of Passover is quite different. Passover bread is unleavened flat bread (matzos). Matzos can be “broken”, but atros bread must be torn or cut.

The absurdity of today’s translations have more in common with the character of Paul and nothing in common with the Jesus of the New Testament. Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 11:23: Ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὁ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ᾗ παρεδίδετο ἔλαβεν ἄρτον. Cp. The Bulgarian: Защото аз от Господа приех това, което ви и предадох, че Господ Исус през нощта, когато беше предаден, взе хляб, ref. the Romanian: Căci am primit dela Domnul ce v’am învăţat; şi anume că, Domnul Isus, în noaptea în care a fost vîndut, a luat o pîne, with the Hebrew: כי כה קבלתי אנכי מן האדון את אשר גם מסרתי לכם כי האדון ישוע בלילה ההוא אשר נמסר בו לקח את הלחם׃. Passover was the following week, after the pre-Passover meal was eaten and the bread torn apart, the wine consumed, and no goat meat mentioned. It was one week after Jesus of the New Testament had died, and was buried. Everything else is a repeatition of the prophets in the Old Testament without referencing anything found in Q or other destroyed gospels. It is from the Old Testament prophets we read about Jesus wandering in the desert, immersion baptism in the nude for John the Baptist “walked down into the water” so there was no sprinkling (cp. Mark 1:5 with 2 Chronicles 22:2-5; cf. Matthew 3:1; 11:11 and Josephus Antiquities 18.5.2 with modern calibration in Beasley-Murray, G.R. (1975), “Baptism,” Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Colin Brown, Ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), Vol. I, p. 144), riding into the city as King on the foal of an ass, and symbolically removing the “traders” from the “house of God” as “prophesized” by Zechariah, but more important his comment “One of you who is eating with me will betray me” (Mark 14:18) is directly lifted from Psalm 41:9, that reads “Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who are of my bread, has lifted the heel against me”: Hebrew: גַּם־אִישׁ שְׁלֹומִי ׀ אֲשֶׁר־בָּטַחְתִּי בֹו אֹוכֵל לַחְמִי הִגְדִּיל עָלַי עָקֵב׃; Greek (Septuagint): και γαρ ο ανθρωπος της ειρηνης μου εφ’ ον ηλπισα ο εσθιων αρτους μου εμεγαλυνεν επ’ εμε πτερνισμον; Bulgarian: Да! самият ми близък приятел, комуто имах доверие, Който ядеше хляба ми, дигна своята пета против мене; Russian (Synodal translation with different numbering): (40:10) Даже человек мирный со мною, на которого я полагался, который ел хлеб мой, поднял на меня пяту; which created the Finnish: Niin myös minun ystäväni, johon minä uskalsin, joka sai minun leipääni, se tallasi minun jalkainsa alle, and Polish: Także i ten, z którymem żył w pokoju, któremum ufał, który chleb mój jadał, podniósł piętę przeciwko mnie. Just one hundred years earlier, according to the Dead Sea Scroll community, the Teacher of Righteousness had quoted the very Psalm when one of his inner council of twelve betrayed him (Dead Sea Scrolls, Thanksgiving Hymns 9:23-24).

The greatest fraud is the communion service (“Last Supper”). It has no complement or correlation with anything Jewish. Jesus in the New Testament was a Jew–and proud of his heritage and religion. The passages in Mark and Matthew are based on Luke, the unapologetic advocate and “intimate friend” of Paul, who also, allegedly, authored the Acts of the Apostles. The cautionary note “allegedly” must be used as there are too many variations in the handwriting, word choice, and so forth to be the work of one person.

The words “eat my body” and “drink my blood” care from far older theologies, including those of ancient Egypt. This is shown in the Didache, dating back to the early second century CE. It is in the Didache that we find the ceremony of the Eucharist, but it reads this way:

With respect to the Eucharist you shall give thanks as follows: First, with respect to the cup [say]: “We give you thanks our Father for the holy vine of David, your child which you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever.” And with respect to the bread [say]: “We give you thanks our Father for the life and knowledge that you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever.” (Didache 9:1-3, in Bart Enrman, trans. (2003). The Apostolic Fathers, Loeb Classical Library 24, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press), p. 431). There is no mention of the wine representing or transfiguring into blood, nor is there a mention of bread representing or transfiguring into body. In short, there is no Transubstantiation (Roman Catholic and Orthodox), nor Consubstantiation (Lutheran and other Protestant sects). It shows that the early communities of Christians( neither chrestianos nor christianos) had any concept or knowledge of a man called Paul. The legendary Paul, furthermore, through those who wrote in his name, had no familiarity with the brummagenic Last Supper, for Paul’s accounts reverse the order of the celebration.

In Paul we read that Jesus blessed first the bread, and then the wine. Luke, however, reports that Jesus first blessed the wine and then the bread. This faux pas is a strong indication that Luke did not know the Paul of the Letters. Based on the calligraphy in the text is most likely the result of at least two or three generations working on the composition of the imperial synoptic gospels and have no external authenticity.

In Luke’s account the “fruit of the vine” (Luke 22:18) has more in keeping with the intoxication of Noah than it does with the Last Supper, but whereas Noah awakens naked in a tent beside a vineyard after having drank the wine and curses a young boy (his grandson Canaan), Jesus drinks the wine before he goes into a Garden is followed out of the garden by a young and handsome boy who is naked who “the soldiers lay hands upon” (Mark 14:51: Καὶ εἷς τις νεανίσκος ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ, περιβεβλημένος σινδόνα ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ· καὶ κρατοῦσιν αὐτόν οἱ νεανίσκοι in the Greek Orthodox Church impression, cp. Greek New Testament Tischendorf 8th Edition with Diacritics: Καὶ εἷς τις νεανίσκος συνηκολούθει αὐτῷ περιβεβλημένος σινδόνα ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ, καὶ κρατοῦσιν αὐτόν· the word νεανισκοι is not included, and note the difference in the 1551 edition: και εις τις νεανισκος ηκολουθει αυτω περιβεβλημενος σινδονα επι γυμνου και κρατουσιν αυτον οι νεανισκοι, with the Ukrainian including a notation: А один якийся молодець ійшов за ним, одягнений полотном по нагому, й хапають його молодці (воїни); at best the story of the mental agony of Jesus is a repeat of the Noah story of whom there is no record of any suffering prior to drinking the wine).

After Jesus died and was buried (twice), his organization or community (now rendered as “church”) was taken over by his brother James—not by Peter, as Eusebius wrote in Church History. II:23-24, preserving the testimony of Hegesippus (Ἅγιος Ἡγήσιππος c. 110 — c. April 7, 180 CE, writing at least 150 years after the death of the Jesus of the New Testament):

The succession of the church passed [the Greek here is διαδέχομαι or diadexomat, meaning “to succeed”] to James the brother of the Lord, together with the Apostles [of whom Paul was not numbered]

See the Syriac Ascent of James that has been embedded in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions I:33-74 that is discussed in Van Voorst, Robert E. (1989). The Ascent of James: History and Theology of a Jewish-Christian Community, SBL Dissertation Series 112 (Atlanta, GA, USA: Scholars Press). James was called the “Just” by all men from the Lord’s time until ours, since many are called James, but he was holy from his mother’s womb.

There are numerous civil records against grave robbing and the movement of corpses from imperial decrees, as with “Ordinances of Caesar (which Caesar is uncertain; it may be Emperor Tiberitus (14-37) or Claudius (41-54)”:

it is my pleasure that graves and tombs remain undisturbed in perpetuity for those who have made them for the cult of their ancestors or children or members of their house. If, however, any man lay information that another has either demolished them, or has in any other way extracted the buried, or has maliciously transferred them to other places in order to wrong them, or has displaced the sealing of other stones, against such one I order that a trial be instituted, as in respect of the gods, so in regard to the cult of mortals. For it shall be much more obligatory to honor the buried. Let it be absolutely forbidden for anyone to disturb them, in case of contravention I desire that the offender be sentenced to capital punishment on charge of violation of sepuiture [early non-Christian writings on death of Jesus].

A page from a 1466 copy of Josephus’ “Antiquities of the Jews”

One of those who wrote about the non-historical Jesus, in fact, not in redaction, is Josephus who penned: “”(Ananus) assembled the Sanhedrin of the judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned” (Antiquities XX 9:1). This was later echoed by Suetonius (c. A.D. 120), a Roman Historian and court official under Hadrian made two references to Christ. In the Life of Claudius (25.4) he wrote

“As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.”

In the Lives of the Caesars (26.2) Suetonius wrote:

“Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.”

Most of the people who heard the legend of Jesus of the New Testament were amused. Most had a better command of science of nature than the christianos—leading Paul to denounce those who studied philosophy. Paul’s brief mention was used by the pagan Thallus (c. 52 CE, who was a Samaritan-born historian and wrote that the sky turned black when Jesus died, the earth moved (an earthquake), and other “wondrous” happens occurred, relying on the gospel tradition of a “darkness” at the death of Christ (see Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44; and Matthew 27:51-53, whose account includes an earthquake, split rocks, and the rise of zombies).

Thallus appalling disregard for reality, formalized in his book Histories, was legendary in his own day as a solar eclipse should mark the death of a king as was common lore among Greeks and other Mediterranean peoples (Herodotus, History, 7.37, Plutarch, Pelopidas 31.3 and Aemilius Paulus 17.7-11, Dio Cassius 55.29.3, John Lydus, De Ostentis 70.a), as were such events that corresponded with earthquakes were also a scientific superstition (Aristotle Meteorology 367.b.2, Pliny Natural History 2.195, Virgil Georgics 2.47.478-80; cp. Jacoby, Felix (1923-1958). Fragmente der griechischen Historiker [Fragments of the Greek Historians,] Berlin, Germany: Weidmann, 1923-1958).

The Gospel of John makes no mention of any such events, nor does Paul or any other New Testament author. Thallus was basically ignored, until the day of Julius Africanus (c. 221 CE) who re jected Thallus doubting the eclipse because Easter happens near the full moon and a solar eclipse would have been impossible at that time, as was well-known. Africanus wrote:

Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Cæsar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth – manifestly that one of which we speak. But what has an eclipse in common with an earthquake, the rending rocks, and the resurrection of the dead, and so great a perturbation throughout the universe? . . . And calculation makes out that the period of 70 weeks, as noted in Daniel [9:24-26a], is completed at this time.” (Julius Africanus, Chronographia 18.1) Here, as with others, the insistance was that all marks in the life of Jesus, from birth to death, has to be a fulfillment of Old Testament lore that sprung from Assyrian and Babylonian antecedents–as is the case with the Book of Daniel.

Africanus’ writings were restored by Eusebius and brought his mythology to light, writing with some contempt:

“Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness [at the time of the crucifixion] as an eclipse of the sun-unreasonably, as it seems to me.”

At the time of the paschal there was a full moon, and an eclipse would have been impossible when Christ died. Furthermore, there is no other scientific explanation, but literature does show select saviors dying when the sun or moon is overhead.

The possibility that Jesus was a real man, but no god, nor a savior or messiah was especially punctuated in the Jewish Talmud that was completed by 500 CE. The Babylonian Talmud reference to Jesus reads:

“On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu [of Nazareth] and them herald went before him for forty days saying [Yeshu of Nazareth] is going to be stoned in that he hath practiced sorcery and beguiled and led astray Israel. Let everyone knowing aught in his defense come and plead for him. But they found naught in his defense and hanged him on the eve of Passover” (Sanhedrin 43a, “Eve of Passover”).

Many refer to Josephus as attesting to the historicity and manhood of Jesus, but their citations overlook critical words:

“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. . . . Pilate condemned Him to be condemned and to die. And those who had become His disciples did not abandon His discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days after His crucifixion and that He was alive; accordingly, He was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders” (Antiquities, xviii.ch. 3, subtopic 3, Arabic text).

The Greek text is highly suspected as it was copied down by Greek Christians and does not match the original texts and appears centuries later; it reads:

“Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works–a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew ever to him both many of the Jews, and many Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestions of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to be condemned and to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and the ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day” (Antiquities, xviii.ch. 3, subtopic 3, Greek text).

This is clearly apologetic plagiarism as nowhere does Josephus claim that he believed that Jesus was “the Christ”, in keeping with his writings. Josephus remained a Jew and no unbelieving Jew would make such statements about Jesus. The name Jesus Christ does not appear in the New Testament (it is either Jesus or Christ) but does appear in the Old Testament as Yeshua Ha’Mashiach (מְנוֹרָה) which is a part of a Menorah, but today’s apologists misuse a word for an object rather than for a person.

The works of Josephus refer to at least twenty different people with the name Jesus. In chapter 9 of Book 20, there is also a reference to Jesus son of Damneus who was a High Priest of Israel and is distinct from the reference to “Jesus called [the] Christ” mentioned along with the identification of James. There are an increasing number of scholars who question the authenticity of the reference, based on various arguments, but primarily based on the observation that various details in The Jewish War differ from it (Habermas, Gary R. (1996). The Historical Jesus, Joplin, MO: College Press Pub. Co., pp. 33-37, and Wells, George Albert (1986). Did Jesus Exist? London, UK: Pemberton Publishing Co., p. 11; cp. Ed. London : Elek, 1975). The earliest known reference to Josephus’ work is found in the writings of the third century patristic author Origen. Origen, however, does not provide any direct reference to the passages involving Jesus. The three references found in Book 18 and Book 20 of the Antiquities do not appear in any other versions of Josephus’ The Jewish War, except for a Slavonic version of the Testimonium Flavomium (at times called Testimonium Slavonium) that surfaced in the west at the beginning of the 20th century, after its discovery in Russia at the end of the 19th century.

Josephus’ tracts are, primarily, forgeries cleverly crafted by Christian monks in the eleventh century (Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., pp. 508-509). The Jews did not preserve the writings of Josephus because they considered him to be a traitor (Flavius Josephus; Leeming, Henry; Osinkina, Lyubov V.; Leeming, Katherine (2003). Josephus’ Jewish War and Its Slavonic Version: A Synoptic Comparison of the English Translation by H. St. Thackeray with the Critical Edition by N.A. Meščerskij of the Slavonic Version in the Vilna Manuscript Translated into English by H. Leeming and L. Osinkina.. Leiden: Brill, p. 26).

Outside of the spurious sentences sung by later apologists for Jesus the Christ, there are no primary sources that claim Jesus of the New Testament lived, died, or ever rose from the dead. Jesus is now, and was then, a myth.

As Jesus is/was a myth, so too is the very fabrication of Christianity. It does not come into being until the Emperor Constantine I hand-crafts it into being a bulkwark against mercenaries the empire hired but never paid, and were at that time banging against the gates and walls that provided protections to Roman citizens and their slaves. While there were communities of believers (chrestianos and christianos) thre was no Christian church as the Emperor had not yet created it. The favored line in Matthew 16:18 (καγὼ δέ σοι λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς) is poorly read and far worse understood (notice the play on Πέτρος and πέτρᾳ). The word ἐκκλησίαν actually is “assembly”–not a building nor an institution. As assembly can be gathered together–not a group of building–as we find in συναγαγόντες τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἀνήγγελλον ὅσα (Acts 14:27) and refers to a group of people who can be greeted: ἀσπασάμενος τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, κατέβη εἰς (Acts 18:22), or dismissed: ἀπέλυσεν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν (Acts 19:41). A shepherd can feed people, not buildings or organizations: ποιμαίνειν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ (Acts 20:28), and greet people (not churches) in homes: οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν. ἀσπάσασθε (Romans 16:5, Colosians 4:5) as the Jesus of the New Testament love people not buildings or institutions: ἠγάπησεν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν καὶ ἑαυτὸν (Ephesians 5:25). Even Paul admits he persecuted people, not institutions: διώκων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, κατὰ δικαιοσύνην (Philippians 3:6). There was no church until Constantine created one; there was no set organization of Christianity as there were various sects and cults, each proclaiming it had the ultimate answer, some killing others while there were also suicide cults willing to die to hurry the End Times promised by so many charlatans.

Coin of Roman Emperor Constantine I depicting Sol Invictus Apollo (Constantine I was hailed as a god after he died–not as a Christian)

There was no Roman Catholic Church before 325 CE. It was not until 325 CE that the Emperor in the East, Constantine I, called his council of warrior bishops to meet with him in the city of Nicaea (Νίκαια in contemporary Iznik, Turkey; it was the ancient city of Bithynia in northwest Asia Minor, and ultimately, before the advent of Christianity, was given to the Thessalian general Lysimachus (Lysimakhos) (circa 355 BC-281 BC) in 301 BC as his share of the lands after Antigonus (who had served under Alexander the Great) was defeated. Lysimachus renamed the city Nicaea in tribute to his wife Nicaea, who was a daughter of Antipater: Macedonian general and a supporter of kings Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great). There he announced the formation of a “catholic [universal] church”—with no representative (presbyters) from Rome present. There were no recognized Popes of Rome, until much later, by the emperors.

The first list of “popes” [i.e. “fathers”] of Rome does not appear until St. Irenaeus, writing between 175 and 190, prepared a highly questionable list of pontiffs. This list appears not many years after his Roman holiday that lasted longer than he anticipated. Irenaeus (Εἰρηναῖος), (2nd century AD – c. 202; he was bishop of what today is Lyons, France) enumerates the series from Peter to Eleutherius in his Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) III.3.3, which is used 150 years later by the bishop Eusebius of Cesaraea in his Historia Ecclesiastica : Church History V.6).

Irenaeus had a specific object in mind when he created this list that most contemporaries knew was false. The list was created to establish the orthodoxy of the traditional doctrine as defined by second century bishops after the original Council of Apostles (that did not include Paul) had died. It was used as a tool to fight what Irenaeus referred to as heretical novelties, by showing that the bishop of Rome (based on a myth by misinterpreting Matthew 16:18-19), and all bishops, was the natural inheritor of the Apostolic teaching.

The fraudulency of Irenaeus’ claims can be seen within his imaginary list as the bishop of Lyons gives only the names of the pretend or reputed bishops (pontifex maximus was a title (read here) reserved for the emperor who did not always go to war but who perform sacrifice [ῥέζειν] for victory acting as chief intercessors to the gods: γεφυροποιοί) alone, not the length of the various episcopates. It has been noted that one of the greatest absurdities in the emerging church and crystallizing fully in the medieval church was the Roman bishops assuming the title of pontifex maximus despites its pagan and civil context, uses, and understanding (“In the matter of hierarchical nomenclature, one of the most striking instances is the adoption of the term pontifex for a bishop” (Paul Pascal (1966). Medieval Uses of Antiquity in The Classical Journal, Vol. 61, No. 5 [February], pp. 193–197).). Judas, by early records was no traitor and betrayed no one; it was a plan that backfired.

To grant Paul space in the invention of Christianity is unusual and short sighted, showing a contempt for the absense of any record in civil order (it is a grave error to attempt to use the Bible to prove the contents of the Bible, and is bad scholarship without supporting primary sources). Paul condemns himself in his words as being knowledgeable about and an instrument of Jesus of the New Testament, as Paul only twice refers to the sayings of Jesus in all the letters (epistles) that are ascribed to his authorship. These references are in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 and 9:14.

The bulk of Paul’s letters reflect an abrupt and un-Jesus-like message. For example, whereas Jesus warned his followers against judging others (Matthew 7:1), Paul had no problem with it (Romans 1:18-28 although only verses 26-27 are pounded out on pulpits and in pernicious preaching today, whereas the entire condemnation is for those who are educated and consider themselves wise in the first century through today, while verses 29-32 spell it out even more in opposition to Acts 10:34. The festering infection that is synonymous with the Epistles of Paul are best seen in the vociferating umbrage of the authors of Romans who wrote: that evil people are filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them [29πεπληρωμένους πάσῃ ἀδικίᾳ πονηρίᾳ πλεονεξίᾳ κακίᾳ, μεστοὺς φθόνου φόνου ἔριδος δόλου κακοηθείας ψιθυριστάς 30καταλάλους θεοστυγεῖς ὑβριστὰς ὑπερηφάνους ἀλαζόνας, ἐφευρετὰς κακῶν, γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς, 31ἀσυνέτους ἀσυνθέτους ἀστόργους ἀνελεήμονας· 32οἵτινες τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιγνόντες ὅτι οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράσσοντες ἄξιοι θανάτου εἰσίν, οὐ μόνον αὐτὰ ποιοῦσιν ἀλλὰ καὶ συνευδοκοῦσιν τοῖς πράσσουσιν. None of this is found in any Gospel, the sayings of Jesus recorded in Q or in any other scroll (Thiede, Carsten Peter and D’Ancona, Matthew (1996). The Jesus Papyrus. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). It is a later fiction, much like the redactions of Josephus and Tacitus]; cp. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:10)

One thing is clear in the original scrolls: Paul never knew Jesus. He wrote about the Jesus of the New Testament no less than twenty to thirty years after Jesus died, and during this time period all biblical scholars agree that there are no surviving records. Even then, as with the Letter to the Galatians, the work is more autobiographical than biographical.

Paul, patronizingly, admits “I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:19). Paul does not refer to James as “an apostle” but accords him greater dignity as “the Lord’s brother.”

The list of actual apostles is clearly stated in Acts: 1:13, detailing the leaders present in the Upper Room in Jerusalem: “Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Mathew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas brother of James,” and then notes emphatically in verse 14: “All these [the Eleven] were constantly devoting themselves to prayer together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus as well as his brothers” (Compare the brothers with Acts 12:17; cp. Tabor, James D. (2006). The Jesus Dynasty: the Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. New York, NY, USA: Simon & Schuster). The brothers included Simon the Zealot and Judas the brother of James.

Mary, definitely, was not a virgin in reference to a hymen or by youth. In the New Testament she is given special dignity, not just as the Mother of Jesus, but also within the Council of the Twelve. This matches ancient Egyptian theology where Isis is accorded superiority over her son Horus and the Twelve gods who assist him.

Paul gives James superiority, over Peter and John (Galatians 2:9). The order of the brothers and other apostles reflect not mortals but members of the constellation that would iconize the mother Mary, similar to the way Isis had been enshrined. There is no proof that Paul (or Peter) ever died in Rome.

Paul was the antithesis of ancient Christianity. Diabolical and sinister those who created Paul did everything to undo the simple message that the Jesus of the New Testament had and instructed his seventy disciples (Luke 10:1) to spread “to all nations” the words of the Old Testament, not a novel New Testament (cp. Jeremiah 31:31 and Luke 22:30). Paul had not obtained any authority from Jesus, for Jesus was dead and never knew Paul, and Paul had little contact with James, the leader of the new Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem. Paul showed only contempt for the leaders of the community in Jerusalem, noting that “what they were means nothing to me” (Galatians 2:6, 9). Furthermore, Paul did not hesitate to hide his condemnation and rejection of the religion of Jesus, scorning the Torah (Galatians 3:24-25, Philippians 3:2-3) and denounced those who underwent the required Jewish ceremony of circumcision (Galatians 5:12) even though the Twelve in Jerusalem followed the lead of Jesus’ brother James who said it was not necessary for the Gentiles to follow the Jewish way (Acts 15:19-21). To make his separation more cutting, Paul uttered what would later be considered a heresy, by claiming that Jesus Histories was not truly born but had existed from all time (Philippians 2:6).

Whereas the emerging church, belching breathlessly out of the community of believers into a stratified, stagnant and sordid institution, had once be thought to argue that Paul was next to or even coequal with Peter, the Letters of Paul show the contrary. Paul hated and diminished Peter in word and deed, working harder than all of the other Apostles (1 Corinthians 15:10) and suffering more than Jesus suffered, stating that he was “filling up what was lacking in Christ’s suffering” (Colossians 1:24: Νῦν χαίρω ἐν τοῖς παθήμασιν ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν καὶ ἀνταναπληρῶ τὰ ὑστερήματα τῶν θλίψεων τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου ὑπὲρ τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ, ὅ ἐστιν ἡ ἐκκλησία,) as he “opposed Peter to his face because he stood condemned” over a dispute involving Jewish and Gentile table fellowship (Galatians 2:11: Ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν Κηφᾶς εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν, κατὰ πρόσωπον αὐτῷ ἀντέστην, ὅτι κατεγνωσμένος ἦν and the Armenian Սակայն երբ Պետրոս եկաւ Անտիոք՝ ես դիմադարձեցի անոր, որովհետեւ պարսաւելի էր:). Paul labels Peter a hypocrite with vitriol in Galatians that is more repugnant and pathetic than all the prattling of Paul in other epistles. To strengthen his lies, Paul more than likely created the two letters attributed to Peter as they sound more like Paul than anyone else.

There is no tangible, incontrovertible proof of a Peter or any immediate successors of Peter or popes during the first one-hundred years in the city of Rome. The lack of proof, that constitutes evidence, is found in the liturgical tradition of the fourth-century Roman Church, because it was only at the end of the second century that any special feast of martyrs was instituted and there is no first century “popes” recognized, especially Linus who allegedly followed the mythological Peter. For that reason no Linus, nor any of his alleged successors, appears in the fourth-century lists of the feasts of the Roman saints.

According to Torrigio (Le sacre grotte Vaticane, Viterbo, Italy: Discepoli 1618, p. 53; text is in Italian) when the present confession was constructed in St. Peter’s (1615), sarcophagi were found, and among them was one which bore the word Linus. The explanation given by Severano of this discovery (Memorie delle sette chiese di Roma e di altri luoghi che si trovano per le strade di esse, parte prima in cui si tratta dell’antichita di dette chiese, Roma, Italy: per Giacomo Mascardi, 1630, p. 120) is that probably these sarcophagi contained the remains of the first Roman bishops, and that the one bearing that inscription was Linus’ burial place. This assertion was repeated later on by different writers. But from a MS. of Torrigio’s we see that on the sarcophagus in question there were other letters beside the word Linus, so that they rather belonged to some other name (cp. Aquilinus, De praescriptione, xxxii Anullinus). The place of the discovery of the tomb is a proof that it could not be the tomb of Linus. (De Rossi, Giovanni Battista and Silvagni, Angelo (1935) Società romana di storia patria.; Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana. Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae séptimo saeculo antiquiores, Vol. II: Coemeteria in Viis Cornelia, Aurelia, Portuensi et Ostiensi. Romae : Pontificium institutum archaeologiae christianae, pp. 236-7, in Latin). Even more condemning is Tertullian’s argument that St. Clement followed St. Peter (De praescriptione, xxxii), yet confusion reigns even here especially with Irenaeus of Lyons. Iremeus (as he is styled in the original Catholic Encyclopedia but should be Irenaeus) has Linus, Anacletus, and Clement; whereas Augustine and Optatus put Clement before Anacletus. On the other hand, the “Catalogus Liberianus”, the “Carmen contra Marcionem” and the “Liber Pontificalis”, all most respectable for their antiquity, make Cletus and Anacletus distinct from each other; while the “Catalogus Felicianus” even sets the latter down as a Greek, the former as a Roman. Among the moderns, Hergenröther, Joseph Adam Gustav (trans. Belet, P abbé) Histoire de l’Eglise. Paris, Delhomme & Briguet [1878?]-1892, Vol. I, 542, note) pronounces for their identity, cf. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger (1868). Christenthum und Kirche in der Zeit der Grundlegung, 2. verb. Aufl, Regensburg, Deutschland: G.J. Manz, p. 315) declares that “they are, without doubt, the same person”; and that “the `Catalogue of Liberius’ merits little confidence before 230.” Duchesne, Louis Marie Oliver (1889). Origines du culte chrétien: etude sur la liturgie latine avant Charlemagne. Paris, France: Thorin, 1889, in French, ranges himself on that side also.

The dating of papal rule does not appear until 354 and then in the controversial and easily disproven Liberian Catalogue (actually entitled Catalogus Liberianus, after the last pope named: Liberius; it is part of an illuminated manuscript known as Chronographus anni 354 [Chronography of 354]) apparently written by one Furius Dionysius Philocalus. (The copyists did include the rampant anti-Semitism, especially that of St. John Chrysostom in his Homilies 1 through 8, etc. The history of the Roman popes can be read in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Chronica Minora I (1892 text in Latin; Berolini : apud Weidmannos, 1892-1898), pp. 73-76) Not only does this late list start with a minor apostle, Peter, but ends with a nondescript pope Liberius, but it does include the assumed length of their respective episcopates (citing no records or other data to firm the tome, its research faulty at best), the consular dates, the name of the reigning emperor (both which have numerous public citations), and in many cases other details that cannot be proven nor disproven as most are falsified from legends without even eye witness verification.

Today, scholars recognized that the Liberian Catalogue earlier part was crafted as far as Pontian (230-35) by Hippolytus of Portus, as it is close to his work Chronica Minora (Lipsiae, in aedibus B.G. Teubneri, 1892; text is in ancient Greek [to 1453]). The highly respected Anglican theologian Lightfoot bishop of Durham who, from 1854 to 1859, edited the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, argued that this list originally contained nothing but the names of the bishops and the duration of their episcopates (Ramsey, Arthur Michael. From Gore to Temple. London, UK: Longmans(1960) p. 1616). Lightfoot argues that the remaining notes were additions by a later hand, most likely by zealous copyists. Several inaccuracies occur; for example, the list of popes in the Liberian Catalogue is identical with that of Irenaeus, except that Anacletus is doubled into Cletus and Anacletus (creating two popes out of one), while Clement appears before, instead of after, these two names. Then, too, the order of Popes Pius and Anicetus has also been interchanged, thus weakening any relevance of the document. All later lists, such as the list by Eusebius, come no less than three hundred years after the alleged first pontifical reign—and are at best staging of a lie. For example, Eusebius in his Church History IV.22 writes that in the middle of the second century (at least one hundred or more years after Peter allegedly was crucified in Rome—that has no historical basis) Hegesippus, a Hebrew Christian, visited Rome and drew up a list of bishops as far as Anicetus for his own use.

The Liber Pontificalis, long accepted as an authority of the highest value, is now acknowledged to have been originally composed at the beginning of the fifth century, and, as regards the early popes, to be dependent on the “Liberian Catalogue”. This list is haphazard and includes both popes and antipopes. As the New Catholic Encyclopedia notes, previous “to the middle of the eleventh century, the information is of uncertain value” (Joyce, G. (1911). “Chronological Lists of Popes.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company).

Emperor Nero

As for there being any active church before Constantine, that is a well-placed fable. It is similar to the legend that Christians/Chrestianos were singled out for persecution. There were no persecution of Christians, but of chrestianos until the fire (Magnum Incendium) that swept the slums of Rome in 64 CE, and the few Christians who did “confess,” confessed under torture but their confession is unclear if they were admitting to being arsons lighting their homes in a drunken stupor or they were proclaiming themselves to be chrestianos to set the sect apart from christianos and thus bear the wrath of the empire (Tacitus, Annals XV.44). Arson in Rome, deliberate or accidental, was not new in the imperial city at this time, as there were other such conflagrations under Vitellius in 69 during the seige of Vespasian (where the culprits were his troops) and under Titus in 80 (Suetonius, Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Titus, 8). The fact that Tacitus’ copyists were quick to blame the Christians and create a false aura of martyrdom were to be subject death rather than acknowledge that Chrestianos being a people eager for martyrdom can be seen in the earliest extant manuscript, the second Medicean, as the e in “Chrestianos”, the Chrestians, has been changed into an i; cf. Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz (2001). Der historische Jesus: ein Lehrbuch. Göttingen, Deutschland: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (originally published in 1996), p. 89 so as to place blame on both sects. The reading Christianos, Christians, is, therefore, doubtful. There are no primary accounts (written by Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder) are described as contradictory and gross exaggerations in keeping with Constantine’s desire to show the Christians being wrongly persecuted and singling them out as the True Faith-keepers, and their scrolls burned in the emperor’s holocaust of writings when the works of Arius were also consigned to the flames (ref: Tacitus, Annals XV.38-39 where Tacitus claims the fire was an accident. Nero was in Antium, so could not have set drunkards out to ignite the homes of the poor while he played a lyre on a hill and watched as we read in Cassius Dio, Roman History LXII.16-17 and Suetonius. “Life of Nero”. Lives of Twelve Caesars. p. 38).

During the Ante-Nicene period following the Apostolic Age (from the death of the last official Apostle, until the reign of the Emperor Constantine I), there was a great diversity of views among the various community that emerged nearly simultaneously with strong unifying characteristics lacking in the apostolic period. The most popular views were those held by the Docetics who taught that Jesus did not appear in the flesh, but as a ghost, and thus could not die; what died was the shell of a man that the ghost had invaded (Ignatius, Trallians 9-11). The Gnostic movement had far more intelligent thinkers, teachers, and preachers than did the movement within Paulinity; these greats included Satornilus of Antioch, who labored before 1500 and Basilides, who taught in Alexandria around 130; and, most important of all, Valentinus, who was active in Rome from c. 135-165 and was regarded as the most gifted figure and thinker of his day. There are no historical records (outside of the Christian Bible which has no foundation in provable and documented history) that lists a Peter. Valentinus was far more important in real life than the imaginary initial betrayer of the Jesus of the New Testament.

Maricon made a distinct impact on Rome. He showed how the New Testament Jesus was far superior in kindness than the violent-enraged Old Testament god. This made people think and encouraged many to give up Judaism.

Since Marcion preached a message of a loving Jesus, he quickly became unpopular with the rise of the militant community that sought the return of a marshal military Jesus proclaimed in Matthew 10:34. A struggle broke out and the presbyters that controlled churches in Rome in the name of Paul (nt Peter), demanded the ouster of Marcion. Their action further alienated the believers and caused one of the first rifts in the community that had not yet been solidified into a single church: a collective community recognizing a single head.

The struggle was intensified with the rise of Montanism that distinctly and sharply followed the teaching of the New Testament Jesus. The Montanists denounced the worldliness of the church and condemned the priests who claimed they were ministers of Jesus for their lavish living and corrupt secular lifestyle. Those who denounced the worldliness of the church and its leaders were categorized as “fallen” people: apostasia (“ἀποστασία”) meaning defecting, departuring, revolting or being in rebellion against the church. Once the Roman Catholic Church had a forceful stranglehold on Western Europe in the nefarious form of the Inquisition (restored by Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) and embellished by Benedict XVI in the manner of Scott Lively, Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, Maggie Gallagher of NOM (read here and here), Brian Fischer (American Family Association) and the two most vile cardinals in history: Timothy Dolan of New York and the wretched Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco with others who despise freedom), Pope Innocent III declared: “Anyone who attempts to construe a personal view of God that conflicts with church dogma must be burned without pity.”

While the Roman Catholic Church was the most worldly and among the richest and wretched in western Christiandom, the Eastern Orthodox was the epitome of any organization under criminal control with the patriarchal throne of Constantinople frequently sold to the highest bidder, while new patriarchal investiture was accompanied by heavy payment to the government (read here and here). To recoup their losses, patriarchs and bishops heavily taxed the local parishes and their clergy to the point of bankrupting most.

The Greek patriarchal throne was never secure. Few patriarchs between the 15th and the 19th centuries died a natural death while in office, instead there was a plethora of forced abdications, drowning, exiles, hangings, and poisonings of patriarchs from Constantinople to Sofia and into Moscow. The hanging of Patriarch Gregory V (Γρηγόριος Ε΄, born Georgios Angelopoulos) from the gate of the patriarchate on Easter Sunday 1821 for becaming a member of the Filiki Eteria (Φιλική Εταιρεία: Friendly Society; cp. Alison, Phillips W. (1897). The war of Greek independence, 1821 to 1833. London, UK: Smith, Elder. pp. 20, 21) that was preparing for a revolt against the Turkish rule; his execution was accompanied by the execution of two metropolitans and twelve bishops, leading to whole-scale burnings of the Bible and the writings of clergy.

The official christiano movement was trotted in by Irenaeus of Lyons, who had little knowledge of the Bible and even less of history—much like the bishops of today, especially those sitting on the Council of Bishops of the USA, and the Perú Council of Bishops. Irenaeus, writing about 185 CE, claimed that the Gospels of Matthew and John were actually written by the Apostles (which has been repeatedly proven to be false), while Mark (on which all synoptic gospels are based) was claimed to have reproduced the message of Peter and Luke. Irenaeus went so far as to claim that the Gospels said nothing about Gnosticism, further proving his ignorance of the Bible, either rejecting or more likely not knowing 1 Corinthians 2:6 (cp. Irenaeus, Heresies 3.4.1). Still the early movement in Rome thrived as the Gnostic movement was far more open and generous than Pauline Christianity that most considered to be a barbaric transmogrification of anything Jesus said, did, or wanted to occur. It was especially popular from 135-160 CE that it threatened to destroy Paulinity that was being cultivated by Imperial Rome as a way to foster and gain adherents to the empire as it argued for spiritual knowledge (γνωσις) over physical or philosophic knowledge and being more passive led to the legalization of Christianity in 313 CE.

Many of those who had entered the early church also left it, such as Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, c. 160-225 CE), the first ecclesiastical writer of prominence to use Latin in his letters (even the presbyters of Rome used Greek), and unfortunately authored the absurdity of their being an “original sin” (Tertullian, Anima 41, that could only be undone by the power of the grace of God: verse 21). Tertullian also popularized the Egyptian concept of a Trinity (Tertullian, Praxeas 2), although it was a term that was used earlier than Tertullian by Theophilus of Antioch in Ad Autolycum 2.15 to refer to God, God’s Logos (Jesus), and God’s Sophia (Holy Spirit). Tertullian and his wife abandoned Christianity for the more views of Montanism. Cp. J. Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln (1845, third edition) The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries, illustrated from the writings of Tertullian. London: Rivington.

Part of the unifying trend of chrestianos and christianos among Gentile was an increasingly harsh rejection of Judaism and Jewish practices. Early Christianity gradually grew apart from Judaism during the first two centuries and established itself as a predominantly Gentile religion in the Roman Empire causing many to leave the new cult. Christianity only became the official religion in 325 CE and then because of the order of Constantine and the support of the army of Rome (Paul Stephenson (2009, 2010). Constantine:Roman Emperor, Christian Victor. New York : Overlook Press, 2010.Chapter 11). Constantine’s Catholic Church that emerged as today’s Roman Catholic, Orthodox of Protestant Christianity rejected, totally, the words of Jesus of the New Testament: “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle [meek] and humble [lowly] in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease, refreshment, recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome [useful, good — not harsh, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant] and My burden is light and easy to be borne” (Matthew 11:29-30).

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate (Българска православна църква – Българска патриаршия, Balgarska pravoslavna tsarkva – Balgarska patriarshiya) is an autocephalous (self-governing with no superior leader or bishop) Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria today. It is the oldest self-governing Slavic Orthodox Church in the world, the least educated, most bibliolateric / bibliotaphic religion that has nothing in common with the ancient Jewish reformed movement of the New Testament nor the New Testament Jesus. Its ignorance and total lack of charity is equalled only by the Pentecostal pretenders who call themselves clergy.

The novel, imperially created religion called Christianity, invaded and raped the ancient Bulgarian tribes, who were Turkic from Central Asia, and had nestled in the Balkans in the first century CE to war against prehistoric civilizations that had cultivated the land generations before their arrival. These prehistoric cultures were more developed, richer, more tolerant, and more committed to the general good of their individual commonwealths than anything the initial Bulgars carried in their war bags.

Those who came before the Bulgars began developing on what would become known as Bulgaria during the Neolithic period dating to 1,400,000 BCE. Prehistoric cultures in Bulgarian lands were composed of numerous communities. However, three civilizations stood out, paling the pathetic paternalism and patriarchies that would eventually destroy ancient Bulgaria’s productivity and peaceful nature with the introduction of a bastardized form of Christianity that followed neither the teachings of the Jesus of the New Testament nor any of the apostles who preached in the first century CE. Instead, the religion that would enter, slash and burn villages, crops, and boats were sprung from the misogyny of the stylized Paul by a school of redactors in the second century CE. They became the keystone for later Paulinists whose plagiarized writings were eagerly adopted by seventh century Bulgarians eager to do away with the feminist orientation of the past, to squelch human and civil rights that past tribes accepted, and to object to any more of human or sexual expression that was not in compliance with the innovations of the Pauline community.

Hamangia Culture, Bulgaria and Romania, 5000-4600 BCE

The earliest civilization that left its mark on Bulgaria was the Neolithic Hamangia culture (began around 5250/5200 BCE and lasted until around 4550/4500 BCE) that was matriarch in nature and government and excelled in pottery usually making vessels in the shape of standing, faceless, naked women with large breasts and buttocks (Vladimir Slavchev, Vladimir (2004). “Monuments of the final phase of Cultures Hamangia and Savia on the territory of Bulgaria,” Revista Pontica vols. 37-38 (2004-2005), pp. 9-20; cf. Berciu, Dumitru (1966). Cultura Hamangia. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România (1966), text is in Romanian).

Successors to the Hamangi wereknown as the Vinča. The Vinča established their own, more advanced culture (5500–4500 BCE; read Chapman, John (2000). Fragmentation in Archaeology: People, Places, and Broken Objects. London: Routledge, p. 239). They engaged in copper metallurgy, long before it became an art in what would become known as Europe, when not involved in agriculture, animal husbandry and hunting and foraging and producing high yield cereals: introducing common wheat, oat and flax and wool (used to make fine fabrics and actually set into place the movement to various fashion cultures, as described by Cvekic, Ljilja (12 November 2007). “Prehistoric women had passion for fashion”. Reuters) to temperate Europe, and made greater use of barley than other cultures, products that were marketed worldwide along with sculptures and jewelry that was fashioned in the form of women since they were also matriarchal, worshipped the divine female, and had rituals similar to the Qadesh in ancient Canaan (Chapman, John (1981). The Vinča culture of south-east Europe: Studies in chronology, economy and society (2 vols). BAR International Series. 117. Oxford: BAR, pp. 117-131; cp. Vasić, Miloje (1932-1936). Preistorijska Vinča I (1932), Preistorijska Vinča II (1936), Preistorijska Vinča III (1936), Preistorijska Vinča IV (1936). Beograd [Belgrade] Serbia: Izdanje i štampa državne štamparnje kralevine Jugoslavije, 1932-1936, all are published in Croatian).

Burial at Varna (Bulgaria) with some of the world’s oldest gold

The third group was the eneolithic Varna culture (4400-4100 BCE). The Varna culture was hard working and made excellent, highly desired and sought after polychrome pottery. It culture was enriched with elaborate cemeteries, the most famous of which are Varna Necropolis, the eponymous site, and the Durankulak complex. These two burial grounds comprise the largest prehistoric cemetery in southeastern Europe. 294 graves have been found in the necropolis, many containing sophisticated examples of copper and gold metallurgy, pottery (about 600 pieces, including gold-painted ones), high-quality flint and obsidian blades, beads, and shells, emphasizing that the Varna civilization had extensive trade with far distant nations.

The Varna civilization had a sophisticated religious structure and a belief in an afterlife, but near its decline became patriarchal and had declined to patriarchalism by the end of the fifth century BCE and entombed an elite male in much the same way as the Biblical accounts of the entombment of Jesus took place, to mark the final transition to patriarchy.

Khebela’s (Cybele) temple in Bulgaria fifth century BCE

The Varna’s followed the goddess Cybele as the source of life, agricultural, and productivity. Cybele’s temple in Bulgaria was carved into a mountain side, of which it is written:

that can be translated as: These are the remains of a temple of Cybele. It is located north of the mysterious tombs hewn where we saw a bull’s head [a symbol of the ritual of the god Mithras].

The age of the temple is about two thousand five hundred years. This is not a serious [old] age, because until it is [a] stone village that is eight thousand years [its antiquity is not considered].

It is located in Dobrogea and is the oldest in continental Europe.

The original name of the ancient settlement (existed from 5400 to 4100 years BC) is not known. So I venture to call it Lake City.

The decline of the Varna civilization can be addressed to the direct evidence of the incursion of horse-riding warriors who brought with them, muck like the illiterate Abrahamic cults from Iraq carried into Canaan, the concept of male superiority, the mythology of a world flood, male superiority, and the need for redemption (Todorova, Henrieta (1982). Kupferzeitliche Siedlungen in Nordostbulgarien. München, Germany: Beck 1982. Materialien zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Archäologie 13. In German).

Constantine burning Arius’ books 325 CE

Varna’s ancient history was marred by the presence of the Thracians who were invaders and occupiers of settlement on the order of Lot who commanded a seat in the gateway of the City of Sodom. The Tracians were followed later by the Greeks and Romans. Ultimately the Christians came carrying a message of “convert or die”. It was the Christian clergy who pushed the invented religion by Constantine I crafted at his Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Much of what had been ancient Christianity was destroyed in the fires lit by the Emperor to silence opposition; this silencing was hailed as a divine revelation by those who traveled from Bulgaria to the city that then was known as Constantinople, and would be taken back as a method to convert the Bulgars and other people by force.

The Christians who were two separate groups (chrestianos and christianos) emerging from violent paganism that some wanted to be the standard of the new faith from the Middle East, based on Matthew 10:34: that Jesus came as a warrior who would use his sword to separate families and communities: Да не мислите, че дойдох да поставя мир на земята; не дойдох да поставя мир, а нож. The most radical of the group held a belief in the supremacy of man and subordination of woman based on the mangled message found in Paulinity (Ephesians 5:22: Жени, [подчинявайте се] на своите мъже, като [длъжност] към Господа). They demanded that all dissenters submit to the emperor (Mark 12:17: Исус им рече: Отдавайте Кесаревото на Кесаря, и Божието на Бога. И те много се зачудиха на Него)and his attendants fatalistic fantasies that were restyled from the theology of Constantine’s soldiers who worshipped and followed the gospels of the god Mithras (Μίθρας) a religion found in Old Persia and in Sanskrit lore (Ulansey, David (1991). Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 8.).

It did not become a dominant religion until the early fourth century and then only with the aid of the Roman (Eastern) Empire. Christianity was not universally loved nor wanted by the majority of Bulgarians. They revolted against its proscriptions and slaughtered its missionaries until the emperor sent out troops to suppress the rebellion against his religion in which he saw himself as a god before he died (he never converted to Christianity–that is a popular myth that has circulated on the Internet for years, and in fundamentalist schools and churches; the only remaining texts state that Eusebius of Nicodemia baptized the emperor as he was dying; after the emperor’s death, the Roman Senate declared Constantine to be a god, and his church declared him to be Saint Constantine the Great even after he killed his wife and son) and was acclaimed as a god after his death (May 22, 337 CE). Constantine’s establishment of a “catholic [universal] church” was not supported by many, leading the emperors who followed Constantine to quicken the penalties for what they defined as heresy and apostacy that were termed the enemies of Rome and Constantinople. Christianity was to be a stablizing force, but it was not until Constantine brought pagan statues into the Church, elevated Mithras to the “sun of righteousness” and changed the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday in honor of Mithras.

St. and Tsar Boris I of Bulgaria

In an effort to stop the divisions and exodus from the Bulgarian church, Boris I (died 907 CE) known as the Knyaz (Prince Борис I / Борис-Михаил) of First Bulgarian Empire (852–889) shuttled between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Roman Pope from 865 – 870 CE in an effort to gain autonomy for the Bulgarian church. It was finally granted at the Fourth Council of Constantinople, and its patriarch took charge of appointing its first primate, clergy, and determining “theological books” that were redactions of earlier texts and had excised from them any writing deemed unfit for the empire by Constantine I in his infamous book burning (and all were Greek Orthodox propaganda). For his efforts, Boris I was called Tsar (emperor: Бакалов, Георги. Средновековният български владетел. (Титулатура и инсигнии), София 1995, с. 144, 146, Бобчев, С. С. Княз или цар Борис? (към историята на старобългарското право). Титлите на българските владетели, Българска сбирка, ХІV, 5, 1907, с. 311) of Bulgaria, and after he died was proclaimed a saint and declared Equal-to-the-Apostles ( Ὁ Ἅγιος Βόρις – Μιχαὴλ ὁ Ἱσαπόστολος ὁ πρίγκιπας καὶ Φωτιστῆς τοῦ Βουλγαρικοῦ λαοῦ. 2 Μαΐου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ. In Greek).

Cyril and Methodius missionaries to the Slavs

It was not until the arrival of the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius (whose historicity is questionable) in 886 CE that Bulgaria had the appearance of enjoying some freedom, for the disciples were instructed to teach future Bulgarian clergy in the Glagolitic alphabet and Slavonic liturgy prepared, allegedly, by Cyril. Cyril’s edition was based on the vernacular Macedonian Slavs from the region of Thessaloniki. Once this was done, Boris expelled the Greek clergy and replaced the Greek language with the Slav-Bulgarian vernacular with testaments elevating the recent Bulgarian version of Christianity complete with many sadistic traits of pagan Bulgarian theology to the level Boris I considered acceptable. This was necessary as Boris was attacking the Byzantines at Acheloos and Katasyrtia (the last city near Constantinople).

Byzantium, attempting to buy time, ordered that the Bulgarian church be recognized as autonomous and its archbishopric as autocephalous and equal in rank to a Patriarchate in 919 CE. Religion became a weapon for emperors and tsars to rule people. Prelates and patriarchs were nothing less than princelings who followed royal dictates so that their luxuries would be paid for out of the thin purposes of the poor and the foolishness of the wealthy who were told they could buy their salvation from misery in the current life to everlasting joy in the life that was promised to come after death.

The final peace between the warring nations was concluded in 927 when the Patriarchate of Constantinople recognized the autocephalous status of the still-primitive Bulgarian Orthodox Church and acknowledged its patriarchal dignity. This favor would not be granted to the Russian Orthodox Church until 1596.

In an effort to keep Bulgaria on a war-footing, various restrictions were made in theological definitions. The role of the woman was to be a mother and produce children for the war machine and sons for the church that had, by that time, become intertwined with the government. Unlike what would ultimately happen in the west, the eastern churches encouraged their priests and prelates to produce more children, as celibacy was considered against the will of god. Any deviation, such as a person refusing to marry or produce children or to remain a virgin by taking holy orders (primarily men, as women were expected to give up any idea of sex) met with severe judgment and the penalty of death, with the Bulgarian church citing scripture’s mythology that the gods had mandated that all people “be fruitful and multiply” a contradiction to Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 7:9 where marriage was held to be the last resort rather than sin: εἰ δὲ οὐκ ἐγκρατεύονται γαμησάτωσαν, κρεῖττον γάρ ἐστιν γαμεῖν ἢ πυροῦσθαι.

Basil II (Βασίλειος Β’ ο Βουλγαροκτόνος)

When Bulgaria fell to Byzantium in 1018, the Bulgarian church was divided again along Greek lines while its clergy began to preach more in earnest for Bulgarians to marry and raise families to fight the Emperor Basil II Bulgaroktonus (Βασίλειος Β΄Βουλγαροκτόνος: Basil II the “Bulgar-Slayer”) who had reduced the Bulgarian people to a second class role. For his cruelty in war that was hailed as bringing souls to the Church, Basil II was acclaimed a saint upon his death.

Ivan Asen I coin

Bulgaria did not re-emerge as a force until 1185/1186 when the brothers Peter IV (Петър IV tsar 1185-1197; his real name was Theodore (Todor) but it was changed at the time he was proclaimed emperor, and indication that he was not a native born) and Ivan Asen I (Иван Асен I) laid the foundations for a new (second) Bulgarian state (while Bulgarian apologists insist both males were Bulgarians from birth, the Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates (Νικήτας Χωνιάτης, ca. 1155 to 1215 or 1216), refers to the people of Peter and Ivan Asen as “the barbarians around Mount Haimos, who were earlier called Mysoi, and are now called Blachoi” (Choniates, 482 in Nicetae Choniatae Historia, ed. Jan Louis van Dieten, Jan Louis (1975) Berlin,

Nicetas Choniates

Germany: Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae #11, p. 368). This was achieved when the brothers restored the Bulgarian Patriarchate (that the Greeks had reduced to an archbishopric) which occurred when Bulgaria united with the Roman Catholic Church in 1203 to the dismay of the Greek Church who worked to call a council in the town of Lampsakos to restore the dignity of the Patriarchy as an Orthodox Church and return to writing along Slavic lines: sermons addressing the obligations of the woman (including remaining silent) and the need for marriage and the production of children.

When the Ottomans (Muslims) conquered Bulgaria (cf. Васил Н. Златарски, История на българската държава през средните векове, Част I, II изд., Наука и изкуство, София 1970), the majority of Bulgarian churches and monasteries (including the Patriarchal Cathedral church of the Holy Ascension in Tarnovo) were razed to the ground, although a few churches were converted into mosques, and the majority of the clergy killed, with the rest of the clergy and most people being converted subtley to Islam, as Thomas Walker Arnold wrote that Islam was not spread by force in the areas under the control of the Ottoman Sultan. A 17th century author wrote:

Meanwhile he [the Turk] wins [converts] by craft more than by force, and snatches away Christ by fraud out of the hearts of men. For the Turk, it is true, at the present time compels no country by violence to apostatise; but he uses other means whereby imperceptibly he roots out Christianity…

(Arnold, Sir Thomas Walker (1896). The preaching of Islam: a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith. Westminster, UK: A. Constable & C., pg. 135-144).

Ottoman Janissaries – I Turchi. Codex Vindobonensis 8626

Arnold is not totally correct, as there were exceptions. For example: The Sultan imposed the infamous blood tax (кръвен данък), also known as devşirme, whereby every fifth young boy was taken from his family (the families were very large then due to the Christian preaching of being “fruitful and multiply) to be trained as a warrior of the Empire. The boys who were taken from their families (although some were sent by their families who wanted their sons to have a comfortable life, and gain some coins for themselves) went through harsh religious and military training that turned them into an elite corps subservient to the Sultan. These corps were called Janissaries (yeni çeri or “new soldier”) and were an elite and loyal unit of the Ottoman army.

When the Muslims first entered Bulgaria, some monks and faithful escaped to Mount Athos, where the preserved Bulgaria’s language, heritage, culture, and religion along with an inbuilt hatred for all things Greek and with a renewed zeal to repopulate the Bulgarian lands with Bulgarians and the Bulgarian faith. This led to a surge of intolerance for anyone or anything that did not follow the Bulgarian Patriarchate interpretation of the meaning of life and a reemphasis on the most violent penalties described in the Old Testament: stoning homosexuals and adulteresses, shunning or executing non-believers, and repelling foreign influences. Biblical literalism became bibliolatry, and the custom of kissing the Bible was made mandatory under pain of death. Those who refused were tortured, and if the refusal was by a female she was literally branded a whore without chance of marriage or forgiveness–a branding that became not only of hot metal but also of words that are found even today in the ranting of autocrats and theocrats such as Rush Limbaugh and Scott Voorhees who claim to be Christian but follow in the footsteps of the Grand Inquisitor immortalized in The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Paisius of Hilendar

Under Paisius of Hilendar (Свети Паисий Хилендарски: 1722-1773), a monk from the southwestern Bulgarian town of Bansko (who is now considered a saint), a volume (История славяноболгарская or History of Slav-Bulgarians; I am using the Cyrillic edition; the modern Bulgarian edition is: История славянобългарска, Istoriya slavyanobalgarska) was written in what was then modern Bulgarian vernacular, called for a national awakening.

Bulgaria national call written in 1762 by Macedonia-born St Paisius of Hilendar

Paisius called for the erasing all traces of Greek language and culture, and ending any connection with the Greek Empire. His guide was his version of the Bible (Daskalov, Rumen (2004). The Making of a Nation in the Balkans: Historiography of the Bulgarian Revival. Central European University Press. pp. 7–8; the monk’s life is the subject of “История на България”, Издателство на Българската академия на науките, т. 5, София 1985, с. 128).

This changed first with the world wars, then with the takeover of communism, although the Bulgarian Communist Party attempted to work with the Bulgarian church and the Bulgarian church cooperated. The main point of agreement was the distain for human and civil rights that the church claimed were not Biblical rights (although many disagree in Bulgaria).

Following the decay of many societies, Bulgaria continued to oppress marginalized groups through the draconic power of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Women demanding equality with men were denounced as lesbians even if they were married and had children. Racial injustices were ignored by the patriarchate, and priests from small villages openly, targeted the LGBT community with violence, social stigmatization, and so forth. The Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) has been at the forefront cataloging, filming and taking depositions of these abuses dedicating their organization to defending and protecting human rights. One of the main targets of the NGO is against the special mephostophelean ministry of the flagitiously foul Father Evgeni Yanakiev from Sliven. Identical to Adolf Hitler of Germany or Charles Worley of Maiden, North Carolina, USA, Father Evgeni Yanakiev cries out for a genocide of all LGBT by stoning.

Uttering only words of evil that have been embellished energumenical, ejaculations, Evgeni has repeatedly denounced the phantom devil that has a firm old over his withered mind in an effort to control villagers to act as mass assassins. His carping cacodemonic ramblings have brought in international observers to see the fireband in action, and led Human Rights Watch to send a letter to the Bulgarian minister of justice, Diana Kovacheva.

Diana Kovacheva. Minister of Justice (Bulgaria)

In the letter, the Bulgarian minister of justice Diana Kovacheva was urged to publicly denounce the statements inciting hatred and violence against LGBT people made by the parochial predatory priest in defiance of the European Union and Bulgarian law. She smiled. She is a loyal daughter of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church that takes precedence over law.

It is a sad day when clergy who proclaim the gospel in churches to love one’s enemies and “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” can turn around and incite the faithful to act violently toward others who are different from them. … The church has an obligation to respect the dignity of every human being even when we disagree with them. For church leaders to align with violence and persecution of any minority by the state or the mob is a gross violation of the values and call of Jesus to his followers.

The attitudes of Yanakiev and the Bulgarian church are throwbacks to horrid attitudes of the past, Ogle said:

The history of the Orthodox churches has been tragically marred by persecution, violence and martyrdom by political and religious zealots in the name of God or of the state. We should learn from our own history not only how we should be treated but how to treat others who hold different views than our own. If we forget our own history and our gospel values, we have lost the intrinsic value of our Christian heritage.

It is a sad day when the secular state appears more Christian than the church itself. We not only diminish our credibility but align ourselves once again with the same religious movements who persecuted the Jews of Europe and asked for state sanction and laws to do so. It is not so long ago that the church justified this attitude towards their fellow neighbors and citizens and Europe nearly destroyed itself in bloody and violent acts. The sin of amnesia can cause us to make the same mistakes. If the church has forgotten her own history of persecution and of being the persecutor, we are part of the problem and have lost our ministry of reconciliation in our time.

Human Rights Watch noted for the minister of justice Article 4.1 of the Bulgarian Protection against Discrimination Act that Bulgarian law prohibits all direct or indirect discrimination on many grounds, including sexual orientation. Evgeni elevates himself above the law as if he were a new Elijah and a witness to a new era consumed in the fires of hate.

Father Evgeni Yanakiev is from the town of Sliven, where I had once planned on buying a house, building a library and school. The more I knew of Sliven, the more rapidly I changed my mind and unpacked my library and furniture.

Stoning LGBT people (common in 79 countries)

In an interview for the Bulgarian ‘Standard’ on 6 June this Prince of Darkness in clerical robes roared: “Our whole society must in every possible way oppose the gay parade that is being planned. For this reason today, I appeal to all those who consider themselves Christians and Bulgarians-throwing stones at gays is an appropriate way.”

Father Evgeni’s mental immaturity includes the repeating of fables created to discredit the LGBT when he stated that he could not remain indifferent if someone is “debauching children” and called on his religious followers to throw mayors and state ministers who allow gay pride marches “in the deepest part of the sea with a millstone hung from their necks” misquoting Matthew 18:6 which specifically uses the word “offend” that must be translated as to strike against or cause anger (стачка или причина гняв): А който съблазни едно от тия малките, които вярват в Мене, за него би било по-добре да се окачеше на врата му един воденичен камък, и да потънеше в морските дълбочини. A week later the priest repeated his words in an interview on the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), proving total illiteracy in his Bulgarian bible misinterpreting John 8:7: Но като постоянствуваха да Го питат, Той се изправи и рече им: Който от вас е безгрешен нека пръв хвърли камък на нея. Cp. With the Russian Synod of 1876: Когда же продолжали спрашивать Его, Он, восклонившись,сказал им: кто из вас без греха, первый брось на нее камень.

On Monday, June 11, the organizing committee of the fifth annual Sofia Pride Parade (the largest human rights event in Bulgaria) issued an open letter to the Holy Synod (the highest authority in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church that consists of poorly trained linguists and philologists (and does not have a single psychologist or psychiatrist on staff) who have no understanding of Acts 10:34: А Петър отвори уста и рече: Наистина виждам, че Бог не гледа на лице). The committee asked the archbishops to withdraw any calls for violence from the Church, following the injunction of Jesus of the New Testament that not one on the Holy Synod has ever met in literature or in life who said in Matthew 7:7: Искайте, и ще ви се даде; търсете, и ще намерите; хлопайте, и ще ви се отвори.

On the following Wednesday, the Holy Synod reaffirmed its strong stand against homosexuality (a word that does not exist until 1862, and is not used to address any psychological action or stte of being until 1892) and “immoral manifestations”. This Christian terrorists argued that it held immutable and immature convictions that homosexuality is “an unnatural lust” that “unconditionally harms both the personality of those who commit and the society as a whole”, thereby going on record in favor of genocide. What these “saviors of mankind” (спасители на човечеството) ignore is that homosexuality is found in all species in nature (Bagemihl, Bruce (1999). Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. New York, NY, USA: St. Martin’s Press), and who live a normal or traditional life. The archbishops, many who have been accused of pedophile practices, asked all parents and teachers to keep children “away from even seeing the parade” in order to “protect them from seduction.” All major psychological and psychiatric organizations have noted that vocalized homophobia is frequently an indication that the persons condemning a natural state such as homosexuality are most likely closeted homosexuals (cf. Zeichner, Amos; Reidy, Dennis E. (2009). “Are homophobic men attracted to or repulsed by homosexual men? Effects of gay male erotica on anger, fear, happiness, and disgust,” Psychology of Men & Masculinity, Vol. 10(3), Jul 2009, 231-236. doi: 10.1037/a0014955; Sánchez, Francisco J.; Westefeld, John S.; Liu, William Ming; Vilain, Eric (2010). “Masculine gender role conflict and negative feelings about being gay.” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. Vol 41(2), Apr 2010, 104-111. doi: 10.1037/a0015805. Herek, Gregory M.; Gillis, J. Roy; Cogan, Jeanine C. (2009). “Internalized stigma among sexual minority adults: Insights from a social psychological perspective.” Journal of Counseling Psychology. Vol. 56(1) Jan 2009), 32-43) doi: 10.1037/a0014672). From the statement released by the Holy Synod, it is more than likely that either a large number or the most vocal opponents of personal freedom are homosexual.

The archbishops’ message was read from church and to public gatherings, including in the erstwhile priest’s town. There is a house is for sale only 30 km from Father Evgeni’s graffiti (here and here) and it is a background for the spewing of more hatred. The graffiti also indicates that most likely Evgeni is a homosexual and is desperate to hide its reality even though he is subject to the laws of the European Union of which Bulgaria is a member.

Bulgaria, as a member state of the Council of Europe, is subject to a recommendation (CM/Rec (2010) 5) of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to member states to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. The recommendation was unanimously adopted by the Committee of Ministers on March 31, 2010.

Paragraph six under B Hate Speech reads:

Member States should take appropriate measures to combat all forms of expression, including in the media and on the Internet, which may be reasonably understood as likely to produce the effect of inciting, spreading or promoting hatred or other forms of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. Such ‘hate speech’ should be prohibited and publicly disavowed whenever it occurs.

The archbishops of Bulgaria ignored openly The international NGO expressed concern in the letter that ‘the call to stone gay people is incitement to hatred and violence’. The letter added: ‘therefore, it should be condemned by you in the clearest terms and in the most public way possible’. “The call to stone gay people is a heinous threat to the security of peaceful people who want to use their freedom of assembly,” said Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “It is incitement to hatred and violence and should be condemned by the justice minister in the clearest terms and in the most public way possible.”

4th annual Sofia Pride 2011

The Human Rights Watch document, furthermore, contains information about the two previous editions of the gay parade in Sofia which took place in 2008 and 2011. The organization recapped that in 2008 right-wing extremist groups and football hooligans violently attacked participants in the first LGBT pride parade in Bulgaria, while in 2011, three volunteers from the parade in Sofia were attacked and beaten.

5th annual Sofia Gay Pride parade 2012

In 2012, the march was for equal rights of persons of different sexual orientation or gender identity. One person was attacked, but gay participants went to his rescue and the attackers disappeared without any police stopping them or their attack.

The human rights spokesperson reminded the justice minister that Bulgaria, as a member state of the Council of Europe, was subject to Recommendation CM/Rec (2010) 5 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, advocating member states to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. The letter revealed that article 4.1 of the Bulgarian Act for protection against discrimination prohibited all direct or indirect discrimination on many grounds, including sexual orientation. In addition, the NGO stated the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, to which Bulgaria is a party, prohibited explicitly in its article 21 discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Human Rights Watch urged the Bulgarian minister of justice to ‘publicly disavow this call for violence and to investigate if Father Yanakiev’s statements can be prosecuted under Bulgaria’s Penal Code’. Father Yanakiev’s statements equal those of Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin.

It seems that Bulgarian society is not ready to accept the LGBT ostentation yet. It has stimulated a lot of discussions, but it has fueled even more protests and negative reactions. The debate remains fierce, but the only difference is that LGBT ostentation is more and more supported by people of high standing in the country, like former foreign ambassadors for example.

Plovdiv Bishop Nikolay of Bulgaria has handed out awards to the Mayor of the city of Pazarzhik Todor Popov and the Pazardzhik Prosecutor Stefan Yanev for “standing up for Christian values, defending Orthodox Christian morality and spirituality, the sanctity of marriage, family, and statehood,” the Sofia News Agency reports. Plovdiv bishop Nikolay awarded the highest distinction of the Plovdiv Bishopric to Pazardzhik mayor Todor Popov and prosecutor Stefan Yanev for upholding a municipal ban on displaying one’s sexual orientation, reports www.Dnevnik.bg.

Nikolai metropolitan Plovdiv awarded mayors and others who supported his program of family values and “kill the gays” 2012

Metropolitan bishop Nikolai, who is notorious in Bulgaria for his hardline Christian stance, praised the Pazardzhik officials for “honorably upholding of Christian values and defending Orthodox morality” and went on to muse on the unity of law, ethics, and religion. Life has no value to this cleric.

Nikolai metropolitan of Plovdiv

After blessing children, the Metropolitan (bishop) quickly lost himself in prayer begging his god to murder those who opposed him as Moses called on his god to dispatch those who warred against his design to steal Canaan from its rightful owners. He was but the church’s Joshua, sent to preach war against disbelievers.

“With his professional position, Prosecutor Yanev has shown that when looked at through the prism of common values, law and morality can be in harmony with each other, which harmony lies in the foundations of the Orthodox understanding of a legal order based on faith in Christ and the norms of public propriety and order confessed by Christians,” reads the official statement of the Plovdiv Bishopric.

Nikolai Metropolitan bishop of Plovdiv

Metropolitan Nikolay has thus effectively expressed his desire for formal legislation based on what he considered to be Christian scripture and dogma. Nothing he has said follows anything found in Q or other ancient gospels, but follows the transmogrified texts in Constantine’s bible that he had the Arian bishop Eusebius prepare for 50 churches in the east.

Prosecutor Oleg Yanev upheld the Pazardzhik municipal ordinance in an official decision filled with extensive deliberations on human sexuality, “natural law,” and “propriety”, and essentially determined that public display of one’s sexual orientation constitutes “debauchery.”

Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim celebrates the occasion of his 95th birthday (40 years as Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church)

About a month ago, the local authorities in Pazardzhik stirred a controversy after coming up with an order banning the displays of one’s sexuality in public, a measure which was directed at homosexuals. The ordinance came about a month after Bulgaria’s third ever gay pride parade in Sofia that rallied several hundred people in June. When a gay rights organization appealed the ordinance before the local Prosecutor’s Office, Prosecutor Yanev upheld the Pazardzhik municipal ordinance in an official decision filled with extensive deliberations on human sexuality, ‘natural law,’ and ‘propriety’, and essentially determining that public display of one’s sexual orientation constitutes ‘debauchery.’ Yanev’s decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Administrative Prosecutor’s Office in Sofia.

There is something called public morality. The society is not obliged to watch how somebody is sticking into its eyes their own travesty, and to watch how somebody is destroying the souls of our children, and pours poison into the very idea about the sanctity of the bond between a man and a woman that forms a family. The task of the Orthodox Church assigned by our God Jesus Christ himself, is to protect the moral and ethical principles of scripture. The job of the church is to condemn the devil when he tries to destroy this holy order…The Holy Synod is resisting decisively any public and shameful demonstration of sodomic sin that destroyes the traditional foundations and values of the Bulgarian people and brings enticement into the views of our children and youth.

Yanev’s decision was fortunately overruled by the Supreme Administrative Prosecutor’s Office in Sofia. Large billboards have appeared in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv condemning the upcoming LGBT parade in the capital Sofia, declaring:

Billboard in Sofia taunting gay parade by far-right in Bulgaria

The gay parade is allowed! Smoking is banned! Which is more harmful for the nation?

The name of marginal far-right party VMRO-NIE is written below. The “smoking banned” part of VMRO-NIE’s billboards refers to the full smoking ban in closed public spaces introduced in Bulgaria at the beginning of June.

In a declaration, VMRO-NIE says it “respects the rights of everyone to have a sexual choice.” However, the party states it cannot tolerate a group of people “brutally imposing their sexual orientation to [sic: on] us, demanding special attention.” The party further claimed that the LGBT parade would be harmful and confusing to children, who will “not understand why men are walking around in pink thongs.” Yet psychological studies show that there is no confusion with children who are not indoctrinated by force.

Skinheads in Pazardzhick (Bulgaria) attack 6 gay activists

Skinheads in the central Bulgaria town of Pazardzhik attacked a group of six activists who had arrived there from Sofia to protest the city council’s ban on displays of homosexuality in public. Novinvite reports:

The (activists) arranged large banners on which they started writing articles from the Bulgarian Constitution and the UN Human Rights Charter. No local gay rights activists joined them, Darik Radio reported. However, about 100 local young men most of them with shaved heads and in black clothes staged an anti-rally claiming they had gathered to express their support for the order issued by the City Council. As several of skin heads members attacked the gay rights activists they were immediately knocked down to the ground and arrested by the policemen guarding the rally, who were led personally by the head of the Pazardzhik Police Directorate, Commissar Stoyan Stoyanov. No-one was hurt during the skirmish. However, the anti-rally protestors shouted offensive slogans directed against the gay rights activists such as ‘No one wants you, losers’, ‘Out of Pazardzhik’, ‘Go to Uganda, freaks’.

Yane Yanev, head of the conservative party RZS (“Order, Law, Justice”) on the right

The posters say that the gay parade is being organized by the Bulgarian Socialist Youth, an organization attached to the Bulgarian Socialist Party; “Spartacus”, a gay/straight disco club in downtown Sofia which was shut down several years ago, and the RZS party, and with the media support of SKAT TV… The message of the posters seems to play on the allegations made by the nationalist party Ataka that the RZS leader Yane Yanev is gay and should admit his sexual orientation because otherwise he would be susceptible to blackmailing – something which Yanev has refuted; various publications over the years have point to former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev as being gay of which there has been no evidence.

The creator of the posters has not been identified, but the date and location on the posters “coincide(d) with the national protest rally organized by the conservative RZS party.” The RZS has frequently been compared in Bulgaria to the NAZI party in Germany and the Tea Party in the USA.

Patriotism has its place—as an expression of loyalty. It is not a hood to cover reality as if it were some medieval monk scurrying about to find heretics and apostates. Patriotism, especially to a partisan party or religion, is both plutocratic as well as destructive of the educational process. While I have written at length about bad education in the USA (where 7000 high school students drop out of education every day) and in other nations, when I noted that education in Perú is the third worst education in the world, it sets off a fire

Casone de San Marcus Universidad (Lima, Perú)

alarm heated by Perú patriotism that Perú universities are the best. They are not (for Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos that shares the 601 place with the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú). The growing scandal of corruption in the Roman Catholic Church indicates that it may well be on its last century, especially with the odiously opportunistic Opus Dei prelature that delights in transmogrifying reality in search of a past that never existed. No where but Perú is this evil organization, Opus Dei, such a total threat to the treatment of mortals, where its male antagonists speak out against women who rightfully demand choice, while turgid theological vociferate ranting roars against men who want to plan families and stop acting like cuyes constantly in heat.

Augusto cardinal Vargas Alzamora (Lima, Perú)

The principal source of this nefarious plot to topple sanity is Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Lima (who was formally accused of murdering, or at least planning the assassination of his predecessor, the equally conservative Jesuit cleric cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora, a native of Lima, who “officially” died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Cipriani Thorne was lucky as he had friends in high places within the Vatican who squelched any question that their favored archbishop might be a murderer. Cipriani Thorne saw the accusations destroyed or rejected by the Roman curia eager to protect itself and its predatory priests.

The high-handed tactics of the Vatican enraged Perú’s best known writer and only Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa. Vargas Llosa became personally involved, and in a stinging attack in the Spanish newspaper El País, described Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne as a “representative of the Church’s worst tradition, its authoritarian and obscurantist tradition”.

Cipriani Thorne, even though many youth had come forward claiming that they had seen the future prelate frequent the Downtowner (a homosexual bar in Lima), was the leading Opus Dei cleric and only Opus Dei cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. He had support of many bishops, but not all of the bishops in Perú supported Cipriani Thorne. The cardinal had some support among some intellectuals and politicians, but not all, as he was a staunch supporter of Alberto Fujimori and of dictatorship in Perú, which if it were under a Fujimori, could remove religious liberty from those not practicing the Roman Catholic faith.

Catacombs below San Francisco church in Lima, Perú

While Cipriani’s Roman Catholic College of Bishops rule as if they were still sitting in the Torquemada’s torture carnivorously cruel chambers in Spain or sixteenth century Lima where human heads were piled in roles to celebrate forced conversions, closures of institutes and schools that sought private investigation, and the cranium of women and young boys savagely beaten to death. Early Spanish records noted what is still common today–that when landlord or priest wanted someone for sex and the individual refused, the penalty for refusal was instant death. Many executed were thrown unceremoniously into the catacombs over which the clergy of Lima prayed, offered the Mass, and sang hymns to a god without mercy. The Council of Bishops were not pawns, however, for Cipriani to move across a chessboard already soaked in human blood with the past stained by both terrorists and police and Fujimori thugs.

Most schools are multigrade; many of them are also in very poor physical condition

In 2007, according to a report released by the World Economic Forum, out of 131 countries ranked in the world, Perú had the dubious distinction of being in last place in the quality of its elementary school education. In the areas of math and science it was in the 130th place. The high schools fared the same: they are bad throughout Perú and in all subject areas. Much of it is due to poverty, and schools are multigraded and the structures are in poor condition that the governments of Peru historically ignore.

Poverty in Perú (2005)

Debilitating 96% of the people of Perú, the issue of poverty throughout Perú keeps education from expanding, libraries basically remain non-existent, and only the most desperate and ill-educated apply for teaching positions as most teachers need to teach in two or more schools in one day just to provide food for their families. All governments throughout Perú history have uniformly ignored the need of future generations and squandered taxes for private adventures, personal pleasures, and family greed: from the Congressional representatives (such as “Señor Pollo” (a nickname for Jose Anaya who was convicted of illegal billing the Perú people and received a five year prison sentence; watch this video) billed Congress for “excessive” consumption of chicken dinners at the expense of the Perú people in two days (the actual charge reads: “pues retornó el 25 y 27 de abril, días en que consumió pollos por S/.428 y S/. 397, respectivamente, según consta en las boletas N° 00970 y N° 00979.” of chicken lunches). Anaya was not unique in his brazen theft. The Perú congress has long been known for its built in corruption, as if any one is elected to sit in Congress, that person collects a pension from the government as long as he or she is alive. Bills are turned in for nearly expense, and the Treasurer of Congress signs off on the bill and issues a voucher for payment. What was strange was the case that appeared with the sitting Treasurer of Congress. The Treasurer of Congress, Lucía Bravo Roncal, billed Congress S/.4547 for a personal shopping trip to Italy while Congress was sitting.

All surveys and tabulations on the quality of education around the world point out one damning and devastating fact. One of the worse places for an education is in Perú. This is more humiliating when it is known that the worse place for education is within Perú’s universities. What each level of education (each grade) has in common is that none educate. All indoctrinate. Teachers repeat the errors of their instructors who reiterated the fantasies of their former professors. Textbooks are considered nearly sacred since they are in print–even when illegal photocopies that are not complete are passed out to public school children–as what was considered adequate information in the past no matter how recent or far back the past was, it was considered acceptable for the students of today–and for their children.

There are numerous private schools that I have visited that openly encourage students to copy any article, book, thesis, or other form of intellectual property. The librarians at these schools claim that the publisher of any book a student sought gave the student the right to copy the material since the school or university had bought two or more original copies. This is not just with impoverished schools or schools in the mountains or Amazons, but it includes universities and primary and secondary schools in Lima and capitals of provinces as well as towns and villages Perú-wide (read here and here and here where Blockbusters closed down because of the epidemic of illegal photocopying, copying, and illegal sharing). While there are laws officially on legal registers, and police and judges are sworn to uphold them protecting intellectual property, copyright, trademark, and other similar means of retaining the owner or developer’s rights, judges, police, and other law enforcement officials ignore Perú’s copyright laws and in many cases break them directly.

The black market that is rampant throughout Peru has cost Perú over 100,000 jobs since 2005, and the number of those being unemployed or underemployed climbs daily as the corrupt governments of Perú do nothing. Blockbusters and other foreign businesses will never return to Perú because of the high rate of theft among all groups and levels of citizens. When I taught at the Ministry of Commerce and Tourism in Lima, the directors of different divisions bragged about how many illegal discs, CDs, books and so forth they had in their homes. They laughed at me when I read the Peru law against plagiarism–with each director, his or her secretary and all students who I taught in the official building in San Isidro telling me that copyright law does not apply to government workers “or those who can get away with it”. Some snorted: “Americans/gringoes are too stupid. They will continue to supply us with music, movies, and books. When they send them down here, we will steal them so that they are free for us. Americans are rich. We are not–so we steal what we cannot afford to pay for”.

I have found this to be the dicta and rubric of Roman Catholic, Adventist, and Baptist schools and churches; it is that widespread). I have watched lawyers, judges, principals, teachers, students go into a theater and film what was being shown. I have witnessed the copying of books on a daily basis. When I go down La Marina in San Miguel, or Jose Balta in Chiclayo, I see illegally copied movies that had not as of that date even been released to theaters in the USA–as I am told that there are Peruanos working in Hollywood who have access to new films before they are released, and copy them to send to their families in Perú so that the family makes money and eats. There are so many mafias in Perú that is difficult to find anyone who is honest. The poorer a person is, the more easily it is to get the person to steal: thus teachers are the worse offenders when it comes to protecting copyright material.

Peruano criminals look at illegal movies for sale on nearly every street corner

Teachers slouch forward repeating ancient myths they were taught without question, students are irresponsible and memorize just to pass in hopes of obtaining work that doesn’t include driving a taxi, and libraries (few and far between) are for social gatherings.

In 2007, Antonio Chang, the last of the competent and determined Ministers of Education, set out to test over 350,000 Perú teachers (a strategy praised by the largest percentage of Perú parents). SUTEP protested, as most of its members failed the examinations (read here and here and here). One site claims that only 151 out of 185,000 teachers passed the basic competency and literary exam, which is 5,000 more teachers than I cite in several of my published articles (read here and here and here) while another writer cites 181,000). Wikileaks, some being published in El Comercio, noted that almost 50 percent of public school teachers were unable to answer simple questions about mathematics, and more than 30 percent were functionally illiterate. Primary school teachers (where the brightest teachers should be teaching) and those working in rural areas (where education is nearly impossible to achieve) received the lowest scores. In competitiveness, Perú ranked 83 in 2008. Peru was 94th among nations in organizational competitiveness. In the area of innovation it was 83. In development Perú was ranked in the lowest tier. Perú is ranked low in business ethics (92:134), high in police corruption (123 with the lowest being 134: p. 288). Education remains stagnantly low. Perú has laws against plagiarism and intellectual property protection, but ranks 121 out of 134 for open infractions with crimes of plagiarism openly committed by the Department of Justice and all government, industrial, business and especially educational institutions. This has, over the years of growing corruption (especially in the presidencies of provinces and local government) to an overwhelming distrust of political figures and operatives (120:134). Business is strangled by complicated and heavy bureaucracy and regulations (123:134), with the result (127:134) that the infrastructure of Peru is one of the world’s worst. Primary education dropped to 133:134 (second from last in the world; in Bolivia, a nation Perú treats with scorn, the primary rating is 127:134), matching secondary and university education (in Bolivia it is 132:124), with the lowest scores in mathematics, sciences (in Bolivia it is 119:134 compared to Perú that is at 133:134) and foreign languages (especially English where teachers are hired on the bases of age (youngest preferred), and cronyism, with many, female and male, prospective teachers offering sex for appointments).

Research is discouraged at all levels of academe, and university-industry research cooperation comes in at 107:134. Quality of scientific institutions is 121:134, with a large majority of professors in science and agriculture unqualified to teach or do basic research. Knowledge of business and business techniques and competitive advantage is 93:134. Perú educational institutions are ranked at second from last, but within Perú the ranking of Peru universities is unique as while the Pontifical University in Lima is first (not tied with San Marcus), private universities excel more than national universities (for example, Universidad César Vallejo is #19 while Universidad Nacional Pedro Ruiz is #36).

To do business in Perú or with Perú, at this time, is insanity, as investors are robbed of profits, manufacturers in Perú use shoddy material, and employees are overworked and underpaid and so steal (the average workday in Perú is 12-14 hours, the workweek is six days, and the average salary below S/600 (roughly a little over $200) a month–while attempting to buy a house costs an average of S/.748, to rent an apartment is S/.300, and to take one month of classes in many universities is S/300).

In 2010, only two nations had a worse record for unacceptable (bad) education: Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. The top two best educated nations are #1 South Korea, and #2 Finland. The USA is #14, and the UK #20.

In the area of languages, the percentage is proportionately lower in Perú. Teachers of foreign languages are woefully inadequate, ill-prepared, and poorly undertained. Better schools of language learning are in Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Columbia and Brasil. The main problem in Perú is the proliferation of Language Centers and shoddy universities, as, at present, anyone can start a university without faculty or facilities–and most do not have a traditional library. There are schools (like Top Class [sic] English) that have websites that

Top Class English methodology webpage

are 100% in Spanish, where are English classes are taught in Spanish, and

Top Class English Evaluation page

where subject matter is elementary.

Top Class English anonymous recommendations page both in Spanish

I am uncertain how Top Class [sic] English had my e-mail address, so I wrote them to inquire about that and other questions that I would have appreciated an answer to inasmuch as I am writing a book on the teaching of English in Perú. I never had a reply. However, I have interviewed a few who have made application with Top Class, and they responded that the courses are taught in Spanish–a common practice among many institutes and schools.

UTP teaches computer use and programming, SENATI began as a trade school (primarily automotives) and branched out to teach languages–basically English as it brings in the greatest revenue, offering the First Certificate in English (FCE; I was its first teacher, and followed by those who had difficulty with pronunciation and grammar), and had one teacher ask me if I would pass him on the FCE examination. When I asked why, he said he would more make more money, and I commented that it would best to learn correct English first, before attempting to teach the language. I notified the director of SENATI who shrugged, and I never saw the “teacher” again. Other institutes advertise for English teachers on the internet–the home and subsequent pages being in Spanish (as with Top Class [sic] English).

All that is required is a diploma (of some sort) but no one seeks transcripts to prove authenticity, and few applicants have ever published anything. Most teachers in Perú will never research even an article; it is a rare teacher who publishes–and in most cases the few publications that see print are self-printed. Peer review is unheard of and seldom used; even when students at the “better” (private or Roman Catholic or church related) universities take an oral examination on a proposed thesis, there are no serious questions, and the committee is not made up of professors in the student’s field. They are selected randomly.

Being a teacher of English, I find that most of my students in the fifth cycle have not passed the basic level of competency, still they have been and continue to be continuously advanced to higher cycles and even graduate, in many cases by teachers whose language skills are submarginal at best. This leads to a renewal of ignorance and the further decline of education in

A real e-mail from a student you considered herself a successful English speaker.

Perú. Students wrote me, frequently, begging for the lowest possible score, claiming that when they are teachers they will learn the language and prove they were worth the extra “boost” in grade. Later, when I had the opportunity to interview graduating students for positions that required fluency and accuracy in the English language, and found none qualified–and shared that information with my class in English Composition and e-mail correspondence, I received condemnation as seen in this letter:

Student objected to me not recommended a Peru graduate for a major position because of the lack of fluency and accuracy in the English language.

I was told by many students and faculty in the English Department, that grammar rules, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure were unimportant. The common comment was “if the message is understood, it’s sufficient.” I disagreed. I was fortunate as my Academic Dean supported me, and listened as I offered to teach a course for teachers that would enable each professor to present English correctly (and no longer speak as if he or she were Mick Jagger or Daddy Yankee).

At the beginning of this year’s January summer session, I was offered the rewarding challenge to teach a basic English grammar course to the professors of English at the university where I teach. The course was to be a workshop requiring participation of all students.

At the end of the eight week class (meeting twice a week for 2.5 hours a day), I was saddened, but not surprised, with the results. These results were based on (1) attendance, (2) participation individually and as a group. This would count for 50% of the grade. The other 50% of the grade was based on in-class writing. What each faculty-student wrote during the last hour of the class, I reminded the class every day, would be reviewed the following day as a group. I corrected the sentences at home, then made a PowerPoint presentation of the writing of each class member to show the next morning. This was repeated for each class that I conducted.

Each day the class covered a specific point of grammar. My Academic Dean, one of the finest and most resourceful leaders I have ever encountered, had made this course a requirement for all English teachers, and had informed the faculty that the course was mandatory.

Even with the word “obligatory” spelled out by the Academic Dean not all teachers of English attended. Many of my coworkers were absent–most of the time.

Following the Academic Dean’s directive, I composed a review of what happened and my assessment. This is the letter that I presented developing and explaining my evaluation of my peers. I only change the tense now and delete actual student names to safeguard their privacy and cause no one undo embarrassment.

Summary of results of the Grammar for XXXX Professors, summer 2012:

Overview: It was my hope, and ineffectual ambition, to be able to offer the faculty of English the foundations for correct English grammar, and wean teachers at XXXX from vulgar (street) English—so common today. To achieve this goal, I followed classic pedagogical patterns that have been successfully used at major universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Carnegie, and so forth, even though many of these once stellar universities have given up established standards to ensure purity of speech for immediacy and modernism as found on the streets–as is now seen in Cambridge’s sponsorship of the bankrupt IB Programme).

I appropriated the use of individual parts of a sentence: beginning with Articles and ending with Direct Objects. Each part of a sentence was defined, discussed, and an invitation was issued verbally inviting argument, rebuttal, discourse and analysis.

Modus Operandi: The methodology for this course was to introduce each part of grammar as it appears in a well-constructed English sentence. At the beginning of each class, a presentation was given on a particular part of English grammar beginning with articles, then adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs and so forth. After a brief overview with proffered examples and pregnant questions asked, the class was encouraged to engage in small group and class-wide discussion: questioning what was unknown or uncommon, refuting comments that I made, rebutting effectiveness of examples, affirming agreement but with caveats, examples, and so forth. The final hour of each class was devoted to a classic (Aristotelean) workshop: all students were instructed to write sentences emphasizing the grammatical part discussed in class and use it in context within a complete sentence. Papers, requiring from seven to 20 such sentences, were gathered at the end of the time period to be graded that evening by me and then returned to the students the next day after the class, as a group, viewed a PowerPoint presentation of each essay (with the name of the author deleted for the sake of privacy). Before scanning each paper, I highlighted any error, explained why the word, phrase or sentence was incorrect, and detailed how the sentence could be rewritten using perfect English grammar.

Results and reactions: While it was made clear by both the Academic Dean and the Director of the Language Department that this was an obligatory / mandatory course, most faculty-students approached this requirement with a cavalier attitude. This is clearly seen in the number of classes students missed, assignments not turned in, and low scores on participation earned. Some students failed to attend any class after the first scheduled meeting. Other alumni selected to avoid various classes, and many were “unavailable” to attend the last week–it was their “holiday time”.

A few did comment it was wrong for a co-teacher to teach them, even though they had not reached the master degree level and I have an earned doctorate and a plethora of publications. As for publications, four students claimed that research and writing was a waste of time, as students (and faculty, they noted, including themselves) had better “things” to do than to research, read, write, or analyze.

Two students stated that I was a fool to research, write, and publish when I could be in a restaurant drinking beer. There were some exemplary exceptions, but these exceptions were rare.

What was learned from this class? I found the exercise to have been worthwhile. It showed definite trends in the learning processes: a declination, not acceleration in the mastery of subject matter. While I am not in charge of hiring or dismissing any teacher, and most teachers who I know have two or three jobs additional appointments at different universities and schools, their approach to the learning process is elementary at best, but in reality it is unacceptable: not only are the faculty’s students being robbed of a chance to learn, grow intellectually, and be better than their parents in the field of knowledge, and make Perú a better place to live, grow, and learn, but the teachers sitting in class with me failed to appreciate the opportunity the university was offering them: to learn more about English by someone who has written and taught more than fifty years.

I sympathize with my faculty-students and their need to make living, and regret that in any other society those who had a score of less than 14 would not be offered an appointment at a university unless it was of dubious or marginal quality and was in existence to promote religious blind faith and not scholarship. This is the case a low-ranked institutions such as at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, Liberty University and Regents University in Virginia (of Regents Law College first year law class, only 50% of its students passed the Virgina bar exam).

Those students who missed the obligatory grammar class(es) were invited to notify the Directora and myself and arrange for a recovery class. Those who did not turn in papers were invited both by e-mail and in person to create and present to me the missing paper. In nearly every case the students who were absent or did not turn in required papers made no effort to contact me or to find a way to make up the work.

It is true that I am but a teacher at XXXX, but when I was Area Coordinator European Studies (in charge of the departments of Languages, History, Social Sciences, and Art) at XXXX (a Roman Catholic University) in California, I visited with the teachers who showed no to lackadaisical interest in their subject area, teaching, researching or writing. Since university standards were high, turnover was equally high. The university wanted the best teachers for their students. With unconcealed disgust with their professional responsibilities and obligations, holding random office hours and being short with students, I had serious reservations in renewing their contracts. At departmental meetings I made my observations known, supporting my objections with concrete examples of inefficiency and lack of subject matter knowledge either by presenting student evaluations or films I made at the back of the classroom. The faculty who were unresponsive to my entreaties, and irresponsible with the work assigned made no protestation. I left their fates with the faculty senate.

At both universities (the one in Perú, and, earlier, the one in California) there was the personal gratification, warmly welcomed by me, when students questioned examples and even presentations. This showed me that they were thinking independently. I cautioned them against being like Galileo who would renounce his own wisdom and discovery just to make the Roman Catholic Church give him peace and not put him through the tortures that awaited so many scientists, pushing the advance of science and knowledge backwards into past generations, in the same way that John Paul II cautioned Stephen Hawking against a too-rapid advance of science. Benedict XVI has come out publicly stating that it is the role of science to prove the existence of a god–but that is impossible since science tests theories while faith accepts beliefs. It is true that many said what I was offering as commentary did not match their books, and I agreed. I also noted that their books were wrong, that publishers today are more keen to make a profit than to print what is correct. When I was student, a half-a-century ago, we would buy the complete works of Plato in paperback for 95 cents and Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary was $7.95 (it still has its paper jacket on which is imprinted the price)–that I still use. We only made $1 an hour as laborers; still, we saw our investment in books as an investment in our futures. I built my own library from one book to 65,000 volumes that I still maintain (very little of which is fiction).

One of the more mature students (I use this phrase to protect her identity; hereafter I will refer to her as Mrs. M) was uniquely agile in this regard and questioned several trends found commonly in Perú in the teaching of the English language. I noted that most came from either bad textbooks or canned courses such as the IB Programme or books such as Travellers.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language

The greatest problem is that there is no standardized English and vulgar English has taken over that would have dismayed Samuel Johnson who worked hard in the eighteenth century to standardize the idiom by publishing his massive dictionary on April 15, 1755. The Dictionary was a work that took him nine years to complete with the aid of a single scribe.

Many Perú students have mastered British English (but only vulgar / street English; such as “using a cooker before chipping into a lorry”; in American English that would be “preparing a meal on the stove before getting into a truck”) while others have studied American English (the majority of it being slang; they spoke of “chicks” [girls] and “reeving up” [becoming excited] before “taking a bath” [bathing; I always wondered where they would take that bath–would they really carry a tub or shower stall into the street?]).

While Perú born teachers worked to enhance their knowledge and skills, the American teachers, who generally were the worse teachers, hailed contemporary music (especially the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Daddy Yankee) as the best way to learn English. That I was told by the sales force at Merck Pharmaceuticals in Ate, a suburb of Lima when I first moved to Perú. They threw words around without any knowledge of their meaning, and justified their commentaries as “matching the language of the students” noting that it really “wasn’t all that important to teach proper English as most students” would end up driving Ticos (a small taxi).

Most of the American teachers I knew (I taught with five at a private Roman Catholic colegio, and when I resigned, the others resigned too; they told me that they came to Peru for a temporary stay: they were: “on holiday” or “seeking a chance to meet Perú men” for temporary partnerships. Teaching was for “extra coins”.

SUTEP protesting required examinations in Lima 2007

While Perú has various “professional groups” from SUTEP (the teachers’ union established to maintain jobs even when the teacher is totally incompetent) to various “institutes” whose sole purpose for existence was to make money off the citizens of Perú who want to escape their native land to move to the USA. Cinemas and tabloids spoke of the USA as if it really were a heaven lined with streets of gold. They were assured everyone had a job, could “get” a house with a swimming pool, and earn extraordinarily high wages with little labor and no need for an education.

No matter what I said, noting that they were living in a cinematic world of fantasy, I was reproached by those who viewed the luxurious lives of stars living in magnificent mansions and crusing on yachts. Angelina Jolie was hailed as a prime example of what the USA offered once they viewed “her home” in “Tomb Raider”. Others declared that Bollywood showed India to be a land of great riches, massive palaces, fine cloth, unlimited gold, and a cornucopia of food for all–there were, the students declared, no poor or hungry as existed in Perú, as those in India sang and danced all day and drank their fill at night as cool air brushed past silken curtains supported by marble pillars astride polished stone walkways.

My goal has always been to teach correct academic English that draws from all English groups: USA, UK, Union of South Africa, and so forth. My goal has always been that the individual student would benefit from the entire plethora of English phraseology. As a philologist, I wanted words used correctly. I thought there were others like me. I went in search of them.

I was especially startled when I spoke with members of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) in Perú who spoke street English. One TESOL teacher told me to “take a chair” when I entered her office. When I picked it up and carried it from the room the teacher was livid and barked out a question on how I could dare perform such an action. I shrugged, and then gently reminded her that she told me to “take a chair”—and take (in both Castellaño Spanish and English) means “to carry”.

Politely I tried to refresh her memory by stating that she did not ask me to “sit down” and wait until she finished her conversation on the telephone. At that point she shreiked, “I wanna do this clear: you are to give English courses”. At that point I laughed so hard (knowing that I would never affiliate with a school where she was employed) that she became more hostile and warned “Iza gonna hit you hard if you put this in my face”. Nearly spitting, she informed me that she had graduated from “a top university in the US”. Gasping for breath, she asked me “why you trouble me, so?”

Dutifully I responded. As carefully as I could I worded my comments, mentioning that there are no legitimate words such as “wanna” “iza” “gonna” or even “US” in any competent dictionary. I noted that US was not the USA, as there are other United States: as is the case with the United States of Brasil [the correct spelling”] as well as United States of Mexico (it has 31 states) and various other countries that consider and style themselves as united states. I made no mention of my own education even though my schools rank in the top ten—her university is in the lower 40s according to the evaluation published by Business Week.

I never did determine what I was “put[ting] in her face.” I am totally inadequate with slang, and cannot comprehend gutter-speech. Unfortunately the other TESOL teachers whom I visited with at different times for various reasons did not reassure me of quality of a TESOL education. TESOL—it seemed too much like the rank rawness of the IB Programme. TESOL, like TOEFL, is a certificate awarded when a student passes an exam. Neither TESOL or TOEFL are degrees, as is a BA, MA, PhD, and so forth.

I helped an American woman who had a BA and a TOEFL to initiate an MA program at a national university in one of Perú’s provinces. We were to be a committee of three, but the third person, a man who also had a bachelor’s degree—although he always styled himself as “Doctor”–came only to the first and last meeting. He was concerned about his job as there was one more upheavel feared in the administration of the Language Department.

The National Univeristies of Perú have frequent administrator shifts. They are all based on politics, and the national university where I taught the students ruled the teachers, demanding less homework, easier grading, and giving a “point-by-point” address that they could write down and use in their own careers. I have never agreed with that ideology or pedagogy, and did not follow student rule during my first semester.

My career at the National University came to an end abruptly when my students denounced me as incompetent, trying to sell my own books: I wrote the only book that I know of on the subject that the class was focused on, and brought copies of it from the USA and told the students where they could buy the books at S/.25 — if they wanted the book (you cannot buy originally published book in Perú for S/.25 = $8). The students complained that they had paid the national university $/.40 soles for materials and thus the book should be for free–even though I would not see the S/.25. There final complaint was that I was not teaching the subject–a subject field I had created.

It was a pleasure to leave the university, especially following my “exit interview with the director of the language program in English who could not speak one word of English, necessitating that we have a student translate for us. When he made mention that the university might call me back for a course, I did muster courage not to laugh but to to say “buena suerte”.

I left with no regrets. I reasoned it was better not to teach than to teach that which is incorrect or caters to ignorance of which there is a bountiful supply in Perú schools and universities. There is no way I would ever teach at that university again.

Judgments or assessments, that I have had to make over my too-long of a career have been made based on test (oral and written) grades, participation, and basic academic standards: readings assigned were to be completed, papers required were written and not copied from Wikipedia, analyses were to be made and reasoning given, and so forth. Outside of Mrs. M, who was certainly the best student in the class and would have received a magnum cum laude with any certificate (it would have been higher, but she was troubled with numerous cellular calls, was called out of class by students and even one professor who felt that the professor’s class was more important). Mrs. M exuded polish, poise and handled all emergencies even noting that she was being denied the opportunity to rank at the top with a full twenty points. Mr. D (I do wish he would have used his full name as is the custom in Perú as any quality education requires that the student adheres to the customs of the host nation and uses titles and names accordingly; I have added my mother’s surname following that of my father’s surname on Perú publications and in my classroom).

Mr. D did well: he wrote clearly, addressed issues punctually, patiently and professionally, was not afraid to question me or call me out on an issue that he found in his textbooks. He listened attentively, helped peers when queried, and provided humor during rather dry periods of presentation. Mr. D scored high and would be entitled to a cum laude recognition.

It is impossible to make any judgment on the rest of the class. No one other than Mrs. M and Mr. D participated to any level that raised their score. Of the students who did poorly (to be as generous as possible), I would urge each to accept some form of academic counseling or allow me to help them privately without charge. My offer was received negatively. No one wished the extra effort by a “co-teacher” and “especially not during vacation”.

My greatest disappointment came when I would repeatedly be forced by my own academic standards to remind Ms. S that the Grammar course was an English course and all communications (written and verbal) had to be in English. She was not alone in speaking Spanish in an English class. Even during the final, these students insisted on speaking Castellaño with me.

To illustrate my thesis, I prepared the following graphs and charts on Excel to detail the realities of the class. I have kept every paper written. I have marks on each student’s participation. These I presented to the Directora, and now to the Academic Dean in this letter.

Analysis of Results: The following analytic table shows that the highest score was earned by Mrs. M with 18.13. This was followed by Mr. D who merited a score of 18.00. The student body of 12, who participated in the course, had 50% who successfully complete the course (based on XXXXX standards). The other 50% did not pass. Ms. N scored the lowest with 1.25.

Universidad XXXX requires that test grades be rounded up once a grade is at .50. The negative effects of grade rounding have been documented by numerous educators, psychologists and scientists (read here and here). Grade rounding promotes a psychologically unhealthy look at the value of serious work and scholarship. Students whose grades are rounded up waste time. They generally fail in real-life skills. The red line (above) show which students passed based on skill.

Pass-Fail score ranking

Attendance and participation were markedly weak. Most points were lost because of no attendance or very little, and in most cases participation did exist with the majority of the students, as seen in this graph:

Frustration with these results was overwhelming. My faculty-students were no better, and some were worse, than my matriculating students ages 17 to 21. When teaching students who had not yet earned a degree, most of my students would tell me that going to discotheques (some within .5 km of a school or university, a few next door to an educational center uniquely styled a university) drinking beer and having sex is more important than learning. I became use to students asking for the minimum grade to pass the course, and when I failed any one of them (I once failed an entire class at one of the most expensive private universities before resigning my position at that university) I was stalked, threatened (physically and sexually, the latter I found unusual as I am an old man), and publicly cursed on the street and get threatening e-mail from young females who failed my course.

Teachers, in general, tell me that what is important is to get paid and make parents, families, and churches happy with the student getting a degree that is not merited but could win for the applicant a job that the individual could not handle and would ultimately leave to drive a Tico. Competent administrators support quality in education and demand expertise in a teacher’s knowledge of subject matter and fairness in grading. This, tragically, is not universally respected nor is it required everywhere in Perú.

Most damning of the Perú education system is there is little subject matter expertise, and what exists is in short supply and short lived as once a faculty member has what is considered a permanent position, the teacher stops reading, researching, rethinking, and writing. It is as if the teacher died: breathing out old comments read from withering aged yellow notes, or plugging in a projector to read PowerPoint presentations to students sleeping at their desks. No student challenges the teacher as if the teacher were a god or pope, and all I have queried have attested that they have been told since kindergarten that you neither defy nor interrupt a teacher.

I have listened to those who are acclaimed to be medical doctors tell patients that drinking cold water is bad for one’s health: leading to colds, indigestion, and influenza. I have become weary listening to males state that a female is not a woman until she has had a baby (and stating that the function of a woman is to have sex with a man). Sex is seen as obligatory made imperative through peer pressure in most Perú schools by the time the girl is eleven, and as one of my teacher-students wrote in his essay, even at the age of ten; the entire scope of human sexuality is not known, and religion in Perú forbids birth control so that it is not rare to see a pre-teenage girl pregnant and frequently married to a pre-teenage boy.

Lena Medina (age 5, 1933)

Lina Medina (born September 27, 1933, in Ticrapo, Huancavelica Region, Peru) was the youngest girl to become pregnant at the age of five; the parents and local doctor thought she had a tumor, and only by consulting other “specialists” realize that she was 7.5 months pregnant. Her son weighed six pounds at birth. Today she is 78 years-old. This is especially true in in Roman Catholic and evangelical protestant schools, but is rising rapidly in the public school system.

Civil engineers work in groups so that ten can watch one of the team dig a hole that has no circumvention. I learned the hard way how unfortunate the architectural engineering schools were in the provinces, as although I had blue print for my new home, the “architectural engineer” used no basic tools in laying out the perimeters for constructing the edifice. In my home there is not a single square room; the builders went by eye-sight (my kitchen is almost a trapezoid). The tiles on the floor show that each room is unique: there is no square, no triangle, no recognizable shape—it is like living as a character in Alice in Wonderland—yet the architectural engineer who assembled my home from bricks and motar, slopped down tiles was as accomplished as the carpenter where no window closes, gaps between the window and sill is so great the flies and crickets can enter withut difficulty and both men are lauded as being among the finest in Perú.

What solutions exist to solve the growing problems in Perú’s educational decline?

First, teachers must be subject-matter experts. Students are not inspired by teachers who read a book (I wish it were in the plural) at them. A subject-matter expert is not a facilitator. A facilitator is a person responsible for leading or coordinating the work of a group, as one who leads a group discussion and is not expected to have a wide or encompassing range of knowledge: a subject-matter expert does, and is the accomplished specialist or authority in a field who sits in a chair of knowledge as one proven to be brilliant, such as Stephen Hawking the former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Students deserve nothing less than the best—not a token of knowledge and understanding.

Second, teacher must teach, and not depend on games, whistles, and bells—and definitely not on PowerPoint presentations of material plagiarized from Wikipedia. When I decided to continue my teaching appointment, it came when my Academic Dean told a troop of frustrated teachers who could not find overheads and computers that in the past teachers used chalk on blackboards. I remember those days, and I taught without notes and wrote key words on blackboards with white chalk.

Teachers must teach as if there is no electricity, no magic markers, and no mechanical or artificial aids. Those alleged educators who do not know their subject field must not teach–as it takes no less than twice the time to unlearn bad education and to study subjections seriously the first time and master content.

Google translator is not a good translator

Far more damaging is the misuse of the computer and the slavish devotion to Google interpretation software. For example, I received this note: (asi sea un minuto que tenga libre quiero estar con usted) that Google mistranslated as (so for a minute you have a clear wanna be with you). A teacher imparts knowledge or skill to others, as did Socrates and Christopher Hitchins or Richard Dawkins. They know the past, interpret the past according to the epoch in which something occurred, but they are able to relate it to the present and see beyond the parochial narrowness of established doctrines and designs. There is no acceptable word “wanna” as that is vulgar English: idiom of the alleys used by thugs, thieves and punks. (Qiero is correctly translated as I want to). I find it only in McGraw-Hill’s fourth edition of Spears, Richard A. (2007) Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions.

Without emotion or regret, I fail all papers that use street terms, including izza (it is a), gonna (going to), et cetera. It is not vindictiveness nor is it vengeance. If a word is temporary, those who come across it a generation from now will not understand its meaning. Thus “gay” today means “homosexual” but “homosexual” was not a word until it was inventedin 1892, when it appeared in C.G. Chaddock’s translation of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis. Gay

Merry Gentleman (illustration 1844) London

meant “happy” or “brilliantly colored”. A “merry gentleman” was benevolent–not fat but a man concerned with others and tries his best to raise for them some money for food and drink (as so beautifully described by Charles Dickens in his Christmas Carol) and bring mirth and music into an impoverished world.

Third, students must take responsibility for their education (read here and here). Students must be challenged and required to substantiate claims (read here and here and here). They must question all things, as Socrates spoke so eloquently (Plato, Apology 37e-38a), and ask questions of themselves, their peers, and most of all—of their teachers.

There is never a time when students should blindly accept what any teacher says without questioning (that was considered de rigueur from the days of psychical petrifaction of the mind with the alleged writings of Augustine of Hippo who loved the ladies and had a bastard he named Gift of the Gods (Adeodatus) through the dark damaged days of the Ox Aquinas who found misery to be satisfying as if he were an Albanian nun living sadistically in India, through the torturous trampling of Torquemada and into the nineteenth century), and no teacher should ever allow a student answer to be a single word: “yes” (or) “no”.

Instead of single word (there are no one-word “sentences” as by definition a sentence must have one noun and one verb) the student must detail the reason for the affirmation or negation, must offer concrete examples, and to reject the mythology of any one source or any one person being infallible on any point within the pursuit of inquiry. For over fifty years, I remind my students, daily, that all sentences must have at least one noun plus one verb; a “yes” or “no” does not qualify as a sentence, and it does not reflect knowledge or rejoinder to a question. The highlight of my life occurred when I was in England and enjoyed the tutorship of the world’s leading Cistercian scholar told me to prove him wrong. I did.

Mystified at my early ignorance the more I studied, I learnt that a learned scholar holds nothing sacred–there is nothing sacred–as the true scholar is married to the conduct of inquiry where there are no borders nor boundaries from which the learned person can dig, unbury, and bring into the light of knowledge that which was rejected or destroyed centuries ago, as when Constantine inanely and stupidly burned the works of Arius and other “heretics” and “apostates” in a frightening way to protect his own creation: a “catholic [universal] church” that he created in 325 CE at his Council of Nicea fashioning out the Jesus he sought with the advise both accepted and rejected by various groups from Sabellians to Montanists, Arians to numerous

others, from the early days of chrestianos and christianos who lived in catacombs and burned what they considered to be pagan scrolls–but their actions were but a forerunner for other atrocities committed in the name of a god throughout history: from the attacks on librarians and the burning of libraries(such as at Alexandria, Egypt where Hypatia was martyred: the skin of her back torn out by the nails of Coptic monks who threw her living body on a bonfire of rare manuscripts) to the purge of Greek philosophers and their works on hydraulics (Archimedes) to irrigation, planting, crop rotation, medicine, birth control and other sciences that would not return to Europe until the time of Leonardo Da Vinci who not only drew the

Catacomb Christians burning books 125 CE

plans for an “air ship” but even for a self-propelled automobile. That the work of late medieval scientists survived and the classics were protected did not come from the charity or safeguarding by the Roman Catholic Church, but instead were rescued by Moors, Arabs, and Muslims who lived in

Renaissance Christians burning books

Europe from 400-1500 CE. When Roman Catholic priests and bishops were not burning books, the early protesters who became Protestants with the rise of Martin Luther, took over and added Roman Catholic studies and tracts to their bonfires of the vanities. The burning of tracts written by those who dissented from the ravages of wisdom by single-minded monsters from Martin Luther and John Calvin to John Knox and to the evangelicals in Lima in 2008 destroying Roman Catholic prayer books and missals, to the evangelical communities in the USA and UK burning the Harry

Harry Potter books burned in 2001

Potter books by J. K. Rawlings (claiming that they were about witches and spells and instruments of their imaginary devil; the congregation of the Christ Community Church in Alamogordo in southern New Mexico heard an anti-Harry Potter sermon in which Pastor Jack Brock claimed the character taught children to take up wizardry), and Protestant pastors burning Korans in Florida, led by evangelical Terry Jones of September 11, 2011, to USA military incinerating the Muslim biblein 2012.

With Nazi approval, German university students began burning books to increase German awareness

These were no less great than the mutiliation of thought under the Nazis of the Third Reich, with the blessings of the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Protestant clergy, who allowed German students to burned books on May 10, 1933, on university campus. Those volumes cast into flames were devoted to science,

philosophy, literature, and sexual therapy studies: especially those written by Jews and the “Godless Jew” Sigmund Freud with the aim of increasing German nationalism and a war to take control over the planet. In Berlin, the German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels gave a speech to the students, declaring:

“The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path…The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. As a young person, to already have the courage to face the pitiless glare, to overcome the fear of death, and to regain respect for death – this is the task of this young generation. And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past. This is a strong, great and symbolic deed – a deed which should document the following for the world to know – Here the intellectual foundation of the November (Democratic) Republic is sinking to the ground, but from this wreckage the phoenix of a new spirit will triumphantly rise…”

New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (19th century seal)

From this the world would learn the truth of “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen”: Where they burn books, in time, they will also burn people. It did not start with the Nazis, however, but was a part of the culture of the USA where purity crusades were determined to dumb down education and approve only select subjects. People were denied freedom to read, and the government of the USA became as draconian as the Roman Catholic Church in establishing censorship laws, outlawing specific books and writers–a virus that multiplied for decades and grew catastrophically under the misrule of Congress led by US Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI), a Roman Catholic, and Richard Milhouse Nixon (R-CA) technically a Quaker. The greatest blow for justice came that momentous

Fourth, students must be taught to understand that just because something is in a book or it is stated as fact by a teacher, preacher, priest or administrator does not mean it is true (for example, Pope Pius XII proclaimed Munificentissimus Deusas an attestation of the assumption of the mother of Jesus body and soul into heaven, matching directly the theology of ancient

Isis (Goddess of Creation, Queen of Heaven) with Maat (text reads: Isis: all that has been, is, or ever will be)

Egypt where Isis rose from the sea and soared into the heavens to wear the stars in her hair while the moon was at her feet (cp. Herodotus, Historia 2: 42, 156). Scholars know that no single book contains all knowledge, and no one can use a book to prove the veracity of the book’s contents.

Fifth, true learners discard the myth that any one person is infallible on any thing (infallibility is derived from the pseudo-Siricus’ law c. 385 CE, a bishop of Rome (there were no bishops in Rome before the third century as even the Catholic Encyclopedia details) resurrected in 1139 CE, and moved forward by those gold-seeking pontiffs who wanted to enrich the church by limiting academic growth and questioning church decided “true facts” (a redundancy in itself). Facts are theories: they must be continuously reassessed, reviewed, reinvestigated, and reproved—infinitely. Fact is not faith (faith cannot be proven as it is a private matter and as such has no place in the academic world and the conduct of inquiry).

Sixth, scholars show that nothing is certain. As the ancient Greeks knew, “Everything changes but change itself: Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535 – c. 475 BCE).” Euripides (ca. 480 – 406 BC) wrote: Question everything. It is by questioning the individual learns as there is nothing sacred that cannot be questioned (originally phrased by Socrates, defined by Plato, and refined by American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882).

Perú teachers protest competency tests

Seventh, all teachers and students must be tested. Schools must be evaluated and accredited. Testing and accreditation should be yearly. In Perú this has been extraordinarily rare, with the teacher’s union SUTEP (composed of the least-learned teachers in Perú) fighting it vigilantly and violently on the streets of Lima and other testing centers. The end results were shocking, with most reports noting that out of the 180,000 – 185,000 teachers who took the most basic of exams determining primary competence and literacy, only 151 passed. Because of the interference of religious-based ignorance, science has become as backward as that in Louisiana and espoused by Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) who is running to be president of the USA (read here and here). It should be noted that in the USA nearly 75% of all GOP USA Senators do not believe in evolution or science.

Chavez”]In Perú, the greatest enemy of education and democracy is Congresista Martha Gladys Chávez Cossío de Ocampo a firm supporter of dictatorship and plutocracy as seen in her rewriting of the Perú Constitution to let mass-murderer and dictator Alberto Fujimori run for unlimited terms, her desire to destroy structures built by common people, her denunciation of those who called on the dictator Fujimori’s daughter Keiko and his other children to return the nearly $1 million stolen from the national treasury to fund their education in the USA, and her declaration that her Constitution was more sacred than any other document in the history of Perú.

Eighth, when it comes to hiring a teacher in any subject area, those in charge of filling academic appointments must look beyond the degree. Competency requires knowledge about the school and its faculty and their academic production and scholarship from where a degree. Of even greater importance are the credentials of the individual professors who taught the applicant and his or her own educational and academic progression of the teacher. There are no standard competency tests for teachers. Provided that the teacher passes at least half of his or her class, he or she will be invited to teach another cycle, as most schools (especially those that are private and for profit) keep faculty

Bruning "College" (Chiclayo, Perú)

that brings in revenue so that the owners of the schools, which now actually attempt to entice parents to enroll their children by dropping the Spanish colegio (school) for the English word college even for kindergarten and

I.E.P. American "College" (it is a kindergarten in Chiclayo in front of USAT)

primary/secondary centers. The true definition of a college is “an institution of higher learning, especially one providing a general or liberal arts education rather than technical or professional training” or “a constituent unit of a university, furnishing courses of instruction in the liberal arts and sciences, usually leading to a bachelor’s degree.” When one is done with college education, that individual moves up to the university and advanced education leading to a master or doctoral degree. Education does not stop when the diploma is proffered. Education is a never-ending journey that continues and does not stop until the learner is dead. The acquisition of knowledge is judged by the educator’s research and writing skills that must undergo peer review and be accepted for publication in a sound academic journal or by a scholarly press.

Cambridge University in the UK was once a credible institution of higher learning and not for more than four hundred years given to fantasy. In the twentieth century it has graduated those who mastered tricks to take degrees and then reject current research and publications in quest of elevating fantasies to facts while pushing sectarian superstitions. This is graphically seen with Stephen C. Meyer. Meyer took a PhD in “science” (it is actually a degree in the philosophy and history of science) from the celebrated university that had on its faculty such luminaries as Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking. His books against Darwinism are published by the Roman Catholic press Ignatius and have nothing of science about them, but a repeat in new words the myths of the Judaeo-Christian Bible.

Meyer, like most imposters, has a self-written and promoted page on Creationwiki that allows for no responses nor does it give any criticism by any authority against creationism/Intelligent Design (read here and here). Meyer has had only one essay published by a reputable, peer review journal: Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, but its own editor believes that its entry had a dubious origin as it does not fit the rigors of scholarly inquiry, and was paid to be included by Richard Sternberg who is one of the one hundred signatories who endorsed ID. Meyer’s stand, saturated with misleading scientific citations more in keeping with a desperate freshman than a Cambridge PhD, is extraordinarily popular with the pseudo scholar Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne (whose two doctorates are (1) theology, and (2) philosophy, and has no science or embryological study background) and other conservative bishops in the Roman Catholic Church who either never had a course in science or has rejected it as being unbiblical (Meyer’s photograph is opposite that of Benedict XVI).

Meyer quickly gave his degree the lie and now teaches creationism under the disguise of Intelligent Design. He has a video produced by the Chuck Colson Institute for Christian Values. Meyer uses any podium to propagandize a mythology debunked centuries ago, yet has marshaled an army to ensure that it enters public and private school curriculum—especially in educationally weak states where ignorance is celebrated in “tail-gating” parties pushed pedantically by parents in quest of watching a football game rather than enriching their minds and those of their children with serious discussion. This downgrading of education is especially true in such illiterate states as Texas (which has the rare exception of Rice University) where the public schools are more of breeding grounds for unwanted babies and ignorance, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi—and now finds Perú ripe for the misrepresentation that is patulously permeating through the pathosis of Opus Dei.

David Barton and wife at Republican National Convention (2000)

As unsavory as is Meyer is David Barton is more strange, bizarre, mentally unbalanced and unlearned. Barton delights in carrying large stacks of books that he has never read. He rules on textbooks in Texas as an “historian” but has no authentic historical education (he did not go to any reputable college). The Texas School Board of Education chaired by Governor Rick Perry’s “right hand” (Gail Lowe) loves Barton, as “he is pure Texans” and without a clue. Barton, like Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sarah Palin (R-AK) transmogrify facts fancifully in revisions of reality, as when they claim that (1) all USA founding fathers were Christians (only five claimed that distinction), or (2) that the Blacks of the eighteenth and nineteenth century were better off as slaves than they are today.

Barton deliberately invents history to conform to his ontology and revisionist agenda that the Texas Board of Education is to undereducated/uneducated (or plain unintelligent) to know is false. His poorly written “histories” have no legitimate citations, and Barton cannot even note or quote any reputable historian with even marginal accuracy. It is not at all surprisingly that even on his website Barton cannot confirm his authorities or citations. He admits as much—much like most of the professors that mutilate education in Perú today—especially in parochial institutions where they hold themselves as authorities—but are totally illiterate in their subject matter field.

While pretending to be a historian, Barton waltzes into science debates and claims that the discussion of creationism and Darwinism is destroying civilization today and leads to its ultimate death. Today, these political leaders are in the advance of the warriors attacking global warming as a myth, decry science (73% of the GOP US Congress does not believe in evolution; read here and here), and think that a corporation is a person, and that a fertilized ova is a

State Legislator Constance Johnson (D-OK)

baby at the moment that the sperm enters the egg. One Oklahoma legislator, Constance Johnson, who had enough of the arrogance and ignorance of the males in the legislature arguing that they were the only ones to decide what any woman could do with her body–as if they were god and judge–became so enraged that she boldly scribbled by hand an amendment to be added to the proposed misogynistic legislation on “personhood”. Ms. Johnson wrote quickly, clearly, and then with steel resolve dropped her proposd amendment into the legislative file to be considered and voted on. What made Ms. Johnson’s proposed amendment startling and gaining for it and its author worldwide attention, was that the proposed amendment declared that every sperm cell a baby–and to release the semen without the intent to procreate a life would be tantamount to murder. Thus masturbation was a crime of mass murder.

Constance Johnson's amendment SB1433 to declare sperm a person

The proposed amendment, she later admitted, was deliberately written to show the stupidity of the embryo law passed in the Oklahoma Senate). Perú is not immune from this chicanery and fatuous puerility where legislatures and leaders of communities expose their ignorance and contempt for people they feel are inferior to themselves and need, especially, a man’s hand to direct “the little ladies” to the path that the women are expected to walk. This is especially true in religious schools at all levels where stagnation adles minds and makes scholarship a joke. This is best seen in the tautological pronouncement of the bishop of Lambayeque, Jesús Moliné Labarte who succeeded Ignacio María de Orbegozo y Goicoechea (founder of Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Catholic University: USAT one of many schools in Perú where free inquiry and debate is discouraged, and Opus Dei theology pushed in all academic fields) one year and two months after the Spanish born Orbegozo y Goicoechea, a priest of Opus Dei since 1951 died.

Labarte’s minimal intellectual prowes are common knowledge but he is entertaining for he sounds like and parades himself to be the equal of Darth Vadar, speaking out on topics he has never studied nor understands, and has won the enmity of Cipriani Thorne who sees him as an enemy of himself and Opus Dei. Since 1997, the venom of Cipriani Thorne has been spat at the Perú College of Bishops, as Cipriani Thorne is determined that he will preside over all aspects of every individual’s life in Perú.

Lambarte is not the only “fool for Christ” (1 Corinthian 4:10 and 2 Corinthians 3:18 – 4:8-13). Most professors at Roman Catholic (and some evangelical) universities who have adopted Opus Dei rules and regulations, have surrendered their own reasoning power and follow the words of a man who would beat himself with a whip until his bathroom was turned red with his own blood (read here and here and here and here where John Paul II would follow the example set by Escrivá who would whip himself at least one thousand times–a sign of severe sexual sublimation and sadomasochistic psychotic schizophrenia as a means of self-abasement and self-punishment or self-humiliation; it does not reflect humility but is seen as an act by people who abuse themselves while suffering severe mental problems), are under the hypnotic trance of Escrivá that they cannot think independently, but refer back to Escrivá’s tome The Way for “spiritual guidance.” What most members of Opus Dei do not know or refuse to understand is that this form of self-whipping is actually a part of a pagan pre-Christian Roman cult known as the Lupercalia when naked young men ran through the streets with thongs cut from the hide of goats that had just been sacrificed so that women who wished to conceive could put themselves in their way to receive blows (usually upon their hands) as a means to entice the goddess of fertility (Cybele, who was originally known as Bona Dea; her theology developed from Anatolia) to make them ovulate and conceive. The goddess of childbirth and safe delivery is Candelifer.

Statue of the Goddess Cybele (queen of fertility) in Madrid, Spain

Eunuch priests of the goddess Cybele, known as the galli (from this word we get the word Galatians, which means “castrated priests” thus the Letter to the Galatians was to a group of castrated men–not to a city–who lived near the river Gallus that was believed effective in curing mental illnesses), flogged themselves until they bled during the annual festival called Dies sanguinis (days of blood), while in Greco-Roman mystery religions required at times ritual flagellation before their congregations as a testimony to faith and to appease any one of their crucified saviours who hungered for human blood that was considered to be the elixir of life. It is depicted in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii, apparently showing initiation into the Dionysian Mysteries.

Once Constantine I established the catholic church in 325 CE, these rituals were incorporated into rituals known as the “Passion of Christ” but the writing of whippings were later editions to the gospel narratives; the original texts were focused on the spiritual mortification of the flesh through fasting. The concept did not become radicalized until the thirteenth century, when monks were the first to fester their flesh with whippings by various corded instruments made of animal skin to boards dotted with metal pieces. It is from this collective lunacy that Opus Dei brought the mentally unbalanced practice to the forefront of Roman Catholicism.

A Roman Catholic priest who teaches Christology at a provincial university uses Mel Gibson’s pulp-fiction “The Passion of Christ” that has little in common with any version of the Gospel by any group but was the written expression of the mentally illness and halucinations of the disturbed German nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824; cf. Ide, Arthur Frederick (2004). Crucifixion: What the Bible Really Says. Chicago, IL, USA: Sepore) and sings the praises of Opus Dei to keep his job. Emmerich’s writings were embellished by the now discredited Clemens Bretano (the fraud is the subject of Winfried Hümpfner (1923), Clemens Brentanos Glaubwürdigkeit in seinen Emmerick-Aufzeichnungen; Untersuchung über die Brentano-Emmerick-frage unter erstmaliger Benutzung der tagebücher Brentanos Würzburg, St. Rita-verlag und -druckere; cp. Suzanne Stahl, “Between God and Gibson: German Mystical and Romantic Sources of ‘The Passion of the Christ'”, The German Quarterly Vol. 78, No. 4, Fall, 2005). Even the Vatican under enfeebled and Parkinson’s Disease suffering John Paul II stated that the writings historicity cannot be proven, but acclaimed the celebration of the nun’s religiosity–a religiosity that bordered on insanity.

While sociology is the study of the origin, development, organization and functioning of human society, another professor at a private university requires readings of religious fiction. The professor feasts on one Mexican author who is referred to, popularly, as a comic and defines the science as a study of God’s plan for the world. (The “professor” is Carlos Cuauhtemoc Sanchez, who is described as “a fraud, a plagiarist, and an opportunist” by The Chronicle of Higher Education). The “professor” is a member of Opus Dei, and is considered “an imposter”. He is styled “a writer of fiction” and has been exposed on YouTube, and is exposed elsewhere. Sanchez’ book A Desperate Cry (paperback, 1997) has been judged as “having no literary merit” “the worst” and “a fake trashy novel” that people should avoid wasting money on. Sanchez’ entry in Wikipedia is self-written (using Google translator) as are the references to his works with Wikipedia issuing a warning that the writing does not meet Wikipedia standards. There is no mention made in the Perú provincial professor’s syllabus or lectures during a short four week course of such luminaries as Andrew Abbott (USA), Jane Addams (USA), Francesco Alberoni (Italy), Alwardi Ali (Iraq), Stanislav Andreski (Poland), Aaron Antonovsky (Israel), Anne Barges (France), Gregory Bateson (UK), Ulrich Beck (Germany), Walden Bello (Philippines), Mohamed Cherkaoui (Morocco), Manuel De Landa (Mexico), Georgi Dimitrov Dimitrov (Bulgaria), Jose Mauricio Domingues (Brasil), or others. Sadly, he ignores the limited contributions of his own peers, and sets himself up as being the great determiner. Students learn nothing about aboriginal or exogamous life, gangs or ghettos. The professor is a thief of students time, money, and learning, yet is free to roam the campus and spew nonsense and ignorance under the stained mantle of academe that he has self-appropriated.

Perú law states that to teach at the university level, the teacher must have at least one Master degree—yet few possess more than a Licentiate (to teach in a primary or secondary school a bachelor degree is required). A genuine doctoral degree is rare (and the few dissertations that I have read would qualify at best for a high school term paper with a few rare ones weighing in at the master level). Teachers are self-styled doctors (a term commonly used for lawyers, but now can be for any degree specialty) on their curriculum vitae and by feign-praising students seeking to ingratiate themselves with the teacher (I had one student write, angrily, that he would rather be loved as a “friend” than to be known as an educated man who could disseminate knowledge). This has to change—now. The longer the wait (poco a poco) the less value Perú has in the world and the more its wealth will be taken by those who will offer a few dollars for thousands of dollars of goods, natural resources, and artifacts. Science and economics have by-passed Perú as RPP notes. Unless the change is now, there will be no Perú tomorrow.

José Antonio Chang

Ninth, Perú needs more funding. While the government of Perú spends only 3% of its GNP on education, placing it the rank of 107 in the world, Bolivia spends 6.3% and is 25 in the world ranking (the USA spends 5.7% and the UK spends 5.3%). Perú excelled when Antonio Chang was Minister of Education under Alan Garcia Perez, but has fallen dramatically under the Humala presidency with SUTEP, a thoroughly corrupt union that protects the incompetent and does not demand its members be subject matter experts member Patricia Salas O’Brienwho claims to be a sociologist. Salas O’Brien

Patricia Salas O'Brien, Minister of Education

wants to change the history textbooks—but with no promise that they will be objective, honest, factual—by adding, by 2013, a section on the Truth Commission (video is here); most likely when the books are reworked for a person in power, they will become a rehash of sectarian and special interest propaganda to delight the one Congresista who has little interest in the poor, the rural, and illiterate to barely-illiterate: Martha Chavez. It will be nearly impossible for Perú to ever win international accreditation—but Perú education can be purchased. Salas O’Brien’s plan is ambitious (see video here), and if it works it will succeed only if vested interests intent on keep the conduct of inquiry suppressed are silenced and reminded that education is for students and educators–not for religious groups nor for industries that hold sway and define learning in a way that will further limit the future generations’ ability to make choices and enter a new life.

Tenth, it is past time to remove the influence of sectarian theology and churches from academic institutions. Academic studies require a critical appraisal of facts. Religion relies on a belief structure that cannot be scientifically proven. Too many students spend too much time in prayers and not enough time studying books and other records, doing analytical comparison, writing critiques and judgments, or questioning source material. Scholarship is a science—not a faith.

Juan Luis Ciprian Thorne

The one university of higher learning in Perú that has reached world acclaim and attention is the Catholic Pontifical University in Lima, but with its acceleration towards objectivity, Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, an Opus Dei cardinal and the son of two supernummaries (supernummaries compose 70% of the clandestine organization: the article has been reprinted numerous times on numerous blogs) cardinal-archbishop of Lima, who is struggling to force the university, faculty and students under the iron fist of Opus Dei. While popular with predatory popes and cardinals, and with 52% of the poor of Perú, Cipriani Thorne lost four times an election to head the Peruvian Episcopal Conference (CEP). In September 2011, the university rightfully rejected a request by the Vatican to bring its statutes in line with the apostolic exhortation Ex Corde Ecclesiae or risk losing its status as a Catholic and pontifical institution. This taut theological terrorist attack was rejected by the university who saw it as Cipriani’s way to force Opus Dei into the university and run a one-time highly respectable university so that Opus Dei can destroy the Pontifical’s credibility and worldview (read here and here).

Marcial Rubio (rector of the Pontifical University, Lima, Peru)

On September 20th the the courageous and democracy prone President of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru, Marcial Rubio, the Research Vice-President, Pepi Patrón, and Legal advisor, Francisco Eguiguren, on behalf of a group of university authorities, faculty and student representatives, filed a petition before the IACHR claiming that the Constitutional Court of Peru has violated provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights and the Protocol of San Salvador, and the rules of due process in a March 2010 resolution (03347-2009-PA/TC) published a month later. The University filed an amparo petition before the Constitutional Court seeking protection against the threat to its autonomy and property rights posed by the Archbishop of Lima through his appointee, Mr. Walter Muñoz-Cho. The amparo petition noted that: The Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, is a leading member of Opus Dei, who vocally opposes PUCP’s autonomy. Peru’s Constitutional Court ruled against the University petition and distorted the amparo claim by introducing wrongful considerations regarding autonomy, property and even the nature of the relations between PUCP and the Archbishop of Lima. This resolution affects the individual rights of the members of the entire PUCP community. It threatens rights as freedom of association, and freedom of thought and expression, enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights. It also undermines the right to education, as defined in Article 13° of the Additional Protocol on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights especially clauses relating to the relationship between education and effective participation in a pluralistic democratic society and promoting tolerance, the right to freely choose the type of education to receive and the right to establish and direct educational institutions under the laws in force.

Pontifical University in Lima, Perú

Attempting to throw its theological threats around, the Vatican ordered the rector of the Pontifical University to “visit Rome”.

Cardinal Erdő

On October 24, 2011, according to the newspaper La Republica, Martin Mejorada, the legal representative of the Pontifical university said, “[i]n no way will we accept any imposition made by Cardinal Erdo. We are governed solely by Peruvian law”. Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne called in Cardinal Peter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary to threaten the university with a loss of its pontifical status since he was denied a seat on its board of directors. The university, courageously and forcefully said “No!” out of concern for Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne’s Opus Dei views and membership as the Vatican makes the unfounded claim that the university is its property (in keeping with the medieval mortmain of absolute control and the rejection of human rights destroyed by the favorites of the popes and bought cardinaltes (“the red hat”) for their small children. Among these recipients was the most notorious of the teenage cardinals: Guize de Lorraine, known as Louis I de (1527-1578). Guize de Lorraine was born October 21, 1527, made a bishop of Troyes (constituted a an administrator because he was not 27) before his 18th birthday on May 11, 1545, and was the nephew of Cardinal Jean de Lorraine (1518), and a brother of Cardinal Charles I de Guise de Lorraine (1547) whose scandalous life even surprised the French. He was the uncle of Cardinal Louis II de Guise (1578), and grand-uncle of Cardinal Louis III de Guise (1615) before having an illigetimate daughter named Anne de Arne; cf. Cardella, Lorenzo (1793). Memorie storiche de’ cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa. Rome : Stamperia Pagliarini, IV, 335-336; Chacón, Alfonso (1630). Vitæ, et res gestæ Pontificvm Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalivm ab initio nascentis Ecclesiæ vsque ad Vrbanvm VIII. Pont. Max. 2 volumes. Romae : Typis Vaticanis, II, col. 1601; Eubel, Conradus and Gulik, Guglielmus van (1935). Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentioris Aevi, Münich : Sumptibus et Typis Librariae Regensbergianae; reprint, Padua : Il Messagero di S. Antonio, 1960, III, 33, 71, 101, 242, 298 and 317; Fisquet, Honoré-Jean-Pierre (1864-1873). La France pontificale (Gallia Christiane); histoire chronologique et biographique des archevêques et évêques de tous les diocèses de France depuis l’établissement du Christianisme jusqu’à nos jours, divisée en 18 provinces ecclésiastiques. 2nd ed. 21 vols. Paris : E. Repos, vol. 19. “Sens et Auxerre”, 123-125; Gams, Pius Bonifatius (1957). Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae. 3 v. in 1. Graz : Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, p. 293.

Officially, the youngest cardinal was only twelve years of age when the red hat was placed on his head–a head to small to keep the hat in place. The new cardinal was Robert de Nobili (1541-1559), the son of Vincenzo de’ Nobili, count of Civitella, and Maddalena Barbolani, of the counts of Montatoobili. Great-nephew of Pope Julius III (who made him a cardinal at age 12) in exchange for gold. Julius III was a “brother” on his mother’s side. Robert had an Uncle [more like a brother] Cardinal Francesco Sforza (1583). Robert, who openly admitted he entered the church “to become rich” participated in the first conclave of 1555, which elected Pope Marcellus II, and participated in the second conclave of 1555 that elected the thoroughly corrupt Pope Paul IV. Read Burkle-Young, Francis A. and Michael Leopoldo Doerrer (1997). The life of Cardinal Innocenzo del Monte : a scandal in scarlet ; together with materials for a history of the House of Ciocchi del Monte San Savino. Lewiston, NY : E. Mellen Press, 1997. (Renaissance studies, v. 2), pp. 110-116; Cardella, Lorenzo (1793). Memorie storiche de’ cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa. Rome : Stamperia Pagliarini, IV, 332-335; Chacón, Alfonso (1630). Vitæ, et res gestæ Pontificvm Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalivm ab initio nascentis Ecclesiæ vsque ad Vrbanvm VIII. Pont. Max. 2 volumes. Romae : Typis Vaticanis, II, col. 1601-1603; Eubel, Conradus and Gulik, Guglielmus van (1935). Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentioris Aevi, Münich : Sumptibus et Typis Librariae Regensbergianae, 1935; reprint, Padua : Il Messagero di S. Antonio, 1960, III, 33 and 74. That Robert was the youngest cardinal in the Renaissance / Counter Reformation Roman Catholic Church is in dispute, however, with evidence emerging that there was at least one younger cardinal. He should not be confused with another Robert de Nobili who was a Jesuit who went as an unwelcomed missionary to Southern India, for he was born in 1577. He alienated the Vatican through a policy he styled as accommodatio: adopting local customs and practices that he did not believe contradicted established Roman Catholic rituals and beliefs.

Innocenzo Giocchi del Monte became cardinal at age 17, his own past sullied by numerous sexual “indescretions”: he was the son of a female beggar, was an illiterate but vivacious and good-looking 14 year old when he was picked up on the streets of Parma by Cardinal Giovanni Maria Del Monte (Pope Julius III who turned the Vatican into a homosexual stable and issued a papal bull declaring Innocenzo legitimate so that he could stay in the papal apartment. The pope named Innocenzo “Cardinal Nephew”, effectively in charge of all papal correspondence, even though the “body of a god” the youth’s nickname, was barely literate and had difficulty reading and writing so was promoted to the office of Cardinal Secretary of State). Cardinal Giovanni Maria del Monte openly admitted that he had fallen in love with him, and who used favors to ensure the cooperation of the boy’s father, and their sexual activities became common gossip, that in time saw the youth moved to a monastery where he had “a free hand”. Read: Burkle-Young, Francis A. and Michael Leopoldo Doerrer (1997). The life of Cardinal Innocenzo del Monte : a scandal in scarlet ; together with materials for a history of the House of Ciocchi del Monte San Savino. Lewiston, NY : E. Mellen Press, 1997. (Renaissance studies, v. 2); Cardella, Lorenzo (1793). Memorie storiche de’ cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa. Rome : Stamperia Pagliarini, IV, 297-301; Chacón, Alfonso (1558). Vitæ, et res gestæ Pontificvm Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalivm ab initio nascentis Ecclesiæ vsque ad Vrbanvm VIII. Pont. Max. 2 volumes. Romae : Typis Vaticanis, II, col. 1588; Eubel, Conradus and Gulik, Guglielmus van (1935). Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentioris Aevi, Münich : Sumptibus et Typis Librariae Regensbergianae; reprint, Padua : Il Messagero di S. Antonio, 1960, III, 31-32, 61, 75, 76 and 246, “Mirapicen.”, n. 5; Weber, Christoph (1994). Legati e governatori dello Stato Pontificio : 1550-1809. Roma : Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1994. (Pubblicazioni degli archivi di Stato. Sussidi; 7) pp. 149 and 630.; the youngest “pope” (a fiction) was St. Alexander I, who was 16 and deposed when he was 21 in Rome “for secret sins of the flesh”–he was homosexual [all original prints of the above references are in the private library in Perú of this author and can be found in the libraries of major universities), using words similar to that of the curia and Holy Inquisition during the trial of scientist Galileo Galilee on the unfounded charges of heresy (deny the validity of the Old Testament, Joshua 10:13 (a plagiarism from ancient Hittite cuneiform records), claim that the sun stood still in its circling the earth). Opus Dei, following the Machiavellian maneuverings and protestations of the unholy scoundrel and flagellant Josemaria Escrivá, refuses free speech for dissent, women the right of determining the destiny of their own bodies, basic human rights and more in preparation to take over the world and make it into a martial and militant medieval Roman Catholic state (cp. Escriva’s The Way). Escrivá and his nefarious organization was rightfully called “God’s Octopus” so meniacal was his greed, grasp and lack of principles, that numbers four bishops in the USA, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, but most especially the sewage-tongued Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne has referred to human rights as “that bullshit!” (in a 1994 interview with Caretas; the better educated in Perú have openly declared, the only “bullshit” is Cipriani Throne).

A strong supporters of dictators such as Alberto Fujimori and would-be queen, Congresista Martha Chavez, Cipriani-Thorne has publicly declared that the teenage students of La Cantuta who were murdered by the paramilitary thugs “who Cipriani Thorne has declared “dutiful sons of Mother Church”) of Vladimiro Montesinos who ordered that the victims be sodomized before being shot so “they will never enter heaven” were justifiably executed—a claim that has embolden Martha Chavez to demand her “right” to tear down a memorial raised to the innocents “until every pebble is discarded” (read here and here). Martha [Marta in Perú Spanish] Chavez has the support of most gangster elements in Peru and is quick to draw Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne’s support for her most draconian designs. A schizophrenic psychopath, Juan Luis Cipriani Thornea condemned the peasants who opposed the death penalty of being cowards, and became the insatiable blood-lusting cleric once Abimael Guzmán (the leader of the Shining Path) was captured–the applauded the death penalty but later changed his mind and now opposes capital punishment. Demented and with no training in psychology, Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne has referred to homosexuals as “damaged goods” and demonstrates he has never studied nor read a single medical and psychological treatise on this natural and normal (as defined by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association among hundreds of other professional groups in the USA, UK, Europe and Asia and was removed from the classification of being “a disease” by the World Health Organization in 1977; only the most uneducated nations led by theocrats like Cipriani Thorne, radical Islamic ayatollahs [archbishops] and illiterate Christian and Muslim religious leaders in Nigeria and Uganda maintain that this natural state of sexuality is a perversion and demand the death of innocent LGBT people) state among all species.

When not casting cruel aspersions on the increasing LGBT community in Perú, the calamitous Cipriani turns the torn earn of charity away from the pleas of thousands of Perú women to have a safe abortion when the zygote is conceived by an act of rape, incest, or without consent. The stranglehold of religion on the schools prohibits medical specialists from teaching safe therapeutic skills for a save abortion, and outlaws even the discussion of fetal development unless the zygote and fetal cell growth is wrongly defined as being “a child.” Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne has actually outdone Adolf Hitler on duplicity and legislating against the people in an effort to make them forever ignorant, forever poor, and forever slaves of the dying Roman Catholic Church.

Through steamed lenses covered with blood of his victims Cipriani Thorn sees his greatest enemies as being the Jesuits who champion human rights in Perú, and closets himself with mentally mummified mortals. The same is true of Adventist and other sectarian evangelical schools where doctrine and indoctrination is considered of greater importance than inquiry, education and learning with the greatest damage done to the sciences (creation is still taught as the genesis of the world, earth’s solar system is detailed as the only universe, etc) and medicine (colds originate because of the drinking of cold water, headaches are the result of thinking evil thoughts inspired by a chimerical Satan, and a woman’s priority is to have children following the Nazi proclamation patterned after a speech by their dead Kaiser Wilhelm II:

Kinder, Küche, Kirche -- Adolf Hitler

Kinder, Küche, Kirche that was blessed by Protestant evangelicals and Roman Catholic clergy throughout the Third Reich).

Academically, religion belongs in a department of philosophy or literature if it enters a school—otherwise it must stay in a mosque, synagogue, church, temple or other religious edifice. Each religion must be compared to all other religions as well as philosophies opposed to religion: atheism, agnosticism, human sciences, free-thinkers and so forth; the comparison must be academic to broaden knowledge. To do otherwise negates intelligence, acquisition of knowledge unfettered with canons, codes, and contexts that cannot be proven; furthermore it limits the freedom of the learner and the quest for wisdom (σοφία or sophia). Giving preference to any god or goddess or to any religion is not only a disservice to the serious student but discourages objectivity and learning. All religions are equal as all came out of an uneducated environment seeking some explanation for that which no one had the answers as science had not yet been born, and with the various clergy, science was stiffled or stripped of meaning in the same manner as it has been transmogrified throughout Perú as it is in Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Alabama, and worse in the USA in the state of Louisiana. Education to live, thrive, and grow must be supported financially, intellectually and personally: by teachers, administrators, and students who demand access to truth and are willing to pay the price by studying: reading, writing, analyzing, debating, and being able to critique that which is to determine if it is real and still pertinent.

On December 20, 2011, I received an e-mail from Fred Edwords, National Director of the Coalition for Reason. In his e-mail, Edwords cited a passage in an oral presentation that he made to two groups in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey. One line struck one of the listeners with concern. The line in question that Edwords delivered was:

Isis and Horus (Egypt) and Mary and Jesus (Christianity)

“The Madonna and Child icon was developed from the mother and child imagery of Cybele and Attis (Mother of God and Sun God), in use at Rome, itself rooted in the older Egyptian imagery of Isis and Osiris–the child in each case being born on December 25th.”

The individual who was troubled by Edwords’ assessment and initially spoke with the National Director then sent Edwords an e-mail. The cognoscenti queried:

“…you used Osiris in your talk, but the information on Osiris is very, very limited and our source pool comes from the Classical period, which predates Christianity, and from late antiquity, a la Plutarch (who is extremely unreliable as a source). While some similarities between Jesus and Osiris exists (for example, the resurrection account between Mark and Plutarch dealing with Jesus and Osiris, respectively), there is no record of a date of birth for Osiris, per se. Plutarch claims that he was the first of the gods of Egypt born during the five-days Egyptians attributed to their births. It assuredly was not during the solstice, but if you have a source on the matter I’d be interested in giving it a look. I poured over my copy of the ANET trying to find any reference of a seasonal connection to the birth dates surrounding the Egyptian deities. That isn’t to say a source does not exist, but I certainly don’t know of it.

While I do not claim the luxury of having personally met with Fred Edwords or knowing him as a personal friend, I am quite aware of his objectivity, dedication to track down and determine the veracity of all resource citations (he called me down on a statement I made about Justin Martyr that I initially appended to a comment on two of my blogs that I later expanded to demonstrate that Martyr was never a traditional Christian (in fact he was banished for a time by the very church he claimed to defend, and whose life and writings are not certain today) and had created the fantasy of a cross (crux) whereas in the scrolls Jesus of the New Testament was executed on a pole), and works tirelessly to dispel myths and folklore. I wrote back with these comments (the questioner’s comments are in black, my response is in red): … you used Osiris in your talk, but the information on Osiris is very, very limited (…from the darkest ages in Egypt until its hostile take over initially by the Hyksos (who may have either been or incorporated the Habiru/Hebrews) or the Ptolemy dynasty that included Cleopatra. The reason is clear, that the individual is referring to one or two papyrus, but (1) there are over 100 different papyrus …, (2) there is tomb and pyramid art with inscriptions that have been … been translated [usually into German] that deal with this subject, (3) there are extra-Egyptiological works left in cuneiform, most likely by Hittites, Hyksos, Phoenicians, etc, (4), etc. which I address in my newest work) and our source pool comes from the Classical period (… your authority is obviously citing Herodotus [“Father of History”] but while there is material, he [like Trajan] recorded what he heard–not saw–and the adiaphora details and references did not exist at that time as a part of the academic buttressing of arguments. …we also have Strabo and his Geography, Plinar and his History (which only specialists seem to know of its existence) and various other writers, but they are writing in the last 500 years BCE, and never entered Egyptian of Mesopotamian tombs, etc, nor studied the work. Today, for example, there are a growing number of scholars who are refining and redefining the various Mithras/Mithraic works that decorate walls in underground “churches” of Mithras detailing how the Christians were kept busy burning the original texts of the Mithras religion…I hope I showed in my last article that the first century CE writers, especially Justin Martyr were not considered “Christians” in the first century not only in the East but the west, and that Constantine I ordered in 325/326 the destruction of most “heathen” texts. …), which predates Christianity, and from late antiquity, a la

Constantine and Council of Nicaea burning Arian books

Plutarch (who is extremely unreliable as a source [actually no–… NGL (Nicholas Geoffrey Lempriere) Hammond, Chester G. Star [whom I studied ancient History under] and others all cite Plutarch and note his reliability. Plutarch’s Nine Greek Lives (now entitled “Rise and Fall of Athens”) rejects most of your antagonist’s … objections, as do most German and [other] scholars …]. While some similarities between Jesus and Osiris exist (for example, the resurrection account between Mark and Plutarch dealing with Jesus and Osiris, respectively), there is no record of a date of birth for Osiris, per se (actually that is incorrect, [existing records] all give Osiris’ birth as December 25 [but do not use the current Christian calendar; read about that below]… but it was not proclaimed throughout the Roman Empire until the first century BCE … read).

Ancient Egyptian calendar

All ancient cultures had different calendars. Most were lunar and dating matched rising and falling of tides, seasonal variations, and so on. Nearly everything else would officially conform to Roman rule, but not the dating of nativities, resurrections, or holy days. These would not be suppressed until the Emperor Constantine would seek to strengthen his rule by creating a church in 325 CE that he could dominate and control: this would be the reason for establishing Christianity as a faith, one that Constantine rejected (the claim that he converted on his death-bed and was baptized by the Arian Bishop Eusebius is fantasized decades later).

Osiris was among the more current gods of salvation within the Empire, where his devotees proclaimed that “his burden is light” and “his rod and shaft” caused no pain.

Osiris pine cone staff

Osiris is a savior-god who had been worshipped as far back as Neolithic times. “He was called Lord of Lords, King of Kings, God of Gods…the Resurrection and the Life, the Good shepherd…the god who ‘made men and women be born again’” Three wise men announced his birth. His followers ate cakes of wheat that symbolized his body. Many sayings associated with Osiris were taken over into the Bible and the emerging Christian Church adopted his symbols, token, and promises, while incorporating the dress of Mithraist priests for their own sacerdotal leaders. This includes, for example:

Papal pine cone staff

Parts of Psalm 23, where the Egyptian hieroglyphs read: “We appeal to Osiris as the good Shepherd to lead believers through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and to green pastures and still waters”

Part of the “Lord’s Prayer”, that in various ancient Egyptian text reads: “O Amen /Amen-Ra [sometimes Amun], who are in the heavens, we keep your name holy…”

Relief of Rameses III "smiting enemies" before Amen-Ra at the God's temple at Thebes

(Cairo Amen Hymn (Papyrus Cairo CG 58038= Papyrus Boulaq 17) that dates, at least in parts, to the late Middle Kingdom: early 17th century BCE) The name of the Egyptian God Amen translates as “the Hidden One” whose name was so holy that only a select few were allowed to pronounce it (ref. Sarcophagus Texts, Formula 44 (CT I, 189f-g)). He is one of the antecedents of Yahweh/Jehovah/YHWH of the later Jews who would become the Hebrews. Amen and his consort, Amenet were the gods of creation.

Osiris had numerous similarities to Jesus of the New Testament–similarities that Christian apologists deny or brush over. Osiris was a god who turned water into wine, forgave fallen women, cured blindness and illness and did most things that Jesus did (Frazer, James George (1962). Adonis, Attis, Osiris: studies in the History of Oriental Religion. Reprint, New Hyde Park, NY, USA: University Books; original printing New York, NY and London, UK: The Macmillan Company, 1906). On the power of Osiris and his champion Horus, read Pyramid Texts, utterance 356, §§ 581-582.

Western Christianity does not adopt December 25 as the birthday of Jesus of the New Testament until 336 or 379/380 (depending on what document is being read). The Eastern churches did not accept December 25 until 386 CE, while Egypt (primarily the See of Antioch) did not concur until 432, and Jerusalem more than a century later (the Armenian Christians never accepted the date, but continues to celebrate Christmas, “manifestation of the magi” and baptism on January 6; read more here).

Orthodox Armenians, Copts, Russians, Georgians and Serbs celebrate the Nativity on January 7th

The year that the Jesus of the New Testament was born was never recorded as the year zero for more than 500 years after his alleged birth; the “Christian” calendar did not exist before the eighth century at the earliest. Religious scholars and serious, trained historians place the assumed nativity somewhere between 7 and 2 BCE (cf. Carson, D. A. Moo, Douglas J, and Morris, Leon (1992) An Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Zondervan).

There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Outside of mythology, there is no historical evidence of there ever being a “bishop of Rome” before the end of the first century. There is a similar lack of evidence even into the second century, and there are no surviving (if there ever had been) documents from any presbyters or other leaders on a nativity of a Jesus of the Testament or on any other son of god anywhere in the City of Rome or on any of the pagan hills of the Vatican that was home to numerous gods from Vulcan to Mithras, who, according to Herodotus, History Bk. 1, c. 131, goes back to the seventh century BCE.

Initiation into Mithraism (serpent represents being surrounded by wisdom)

Mithras had an inscription on his altars, on his cave walls where rituals were performed, and in numerous other places. The inscription reads: “He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made on with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation.” It was later plagiarized by the writers of John 6:53-54.

Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time (Origen, Homily on Leviticus 8). Among the most convoluted arguments for December 25, comes from the Father of the Church Tertullian—who would leave the church and become a born-again pagan—of Carthage. He tried to determine the date Jesus died, placing it at the 14th of Nisan (day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John that did not exist in its entirety. That would make it March 25 in the Roman solar calendar—which is precisely nine months before December 25, making March 25 the date (and later commemoration) of Jesus’ conception (Luke 1:26; ovulation was not a science, but it was commonly known that a pregnancy lasted nine months, and that date was determined by referencing Elizabeth’s conception of John the Baptist: Luke 1:10-13; that was based on duties Zacharias performed on the Day of Atonement during the seventh month of the Hebrew lunar calendar, now lunisolar [הלוח העברי], Ethanim or Tishri (Leviticus 16:29, 1 Kings 8:2) which falls in September–October but the precise date is uncertain given the calendar at that time), as apologists for the New Testament Jesus argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year—thus the birth was pegged at December 25. This argument appears in an anonymous “Christian” treatise entitled On Solstices and Equinoxes that was appears from fourth-century Africa: De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu christi et iohannis baptistae. It is based on Augustine of Hippo (only late in life, after whoring and fathering a bastard did he become a Christian under the scolding of his mother), as found in Augustine, Sermo CCII.

Stone manger to feed cattle in Iran (200 BCE - 2011 CE)

There was no stable, nor any farm animals present at the birth, and the “manger” was a feeding troth in a cave—not in a barn near a hotel (Luke 2:7). That there were “shepherds in a field” does not indicate that the shepherds were near-by, but that the season was warm and not raining nor cold—this would exclude winter months. Matthew 2:11 reports that an indefinite number of astrologers visited the cave, not three wise men nor magi. The fantasy of Jesus being wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger comes from the theology of the Persian/Zoroastrian God Mithra/Mithras. As with Christianity that has its trinity composed of the Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Ghost/Spirit; Mithra/Mithras was a part of the Zoroastrian Trinity: along with Rashnu “Justice” and Sraosha “Obedience”, Mithra is one of the three judges at the

Mithras Chinva Bridge of Separation (separating souls)

Chinva (or Chinvat) bridge, the “bridge of separation” that all souls must cross, and as with what became Christianity without Jesus (better known as Paulinity), no one could go to the Father without first turning to the Son, nor could one achieve eternal life without confessing the name of Mithra/Mithras as he “quiets the waters and makes the pastures green” (Avestan hymn to Mithra (Yasht 10) and Yasna 1:11-3:13).

Saturnalia celebrated with alcohol and sex on December 25 to initiate fertility

Christmas “traditions” are of recent vintage. They were never a part of the early, medieval, or renaissance periods. The word “Christmas,” in fact, does not appear in word-formation until 1038, and then only in medieval English. All Christmas celebrations and traditions can be dated back at least 4000 to 15000 years BCE from Egypt to Scandinavia, Eastern Russia to France, Ethiopia to Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. These are found in Scandinavia worship celebration of the God Odin, in the Roman Empire recognizing the joyful sounds of Bacchus and the riotous merrymaking of Saturnalia, in Egypt where fertility rituals were the sport of the day, and numerous other occurrences.

Nicholas bishop of Myra

The innovation of gift-giving (originally ascribed to a Greek bishop named Nicholas (Νικόλαος) of Myra who left socks of money to poor girls for dowries) whose relics were transferred to the Italian town of Bari (for that reason he is also known as Nicholas of Bari); he has always been favored by fishermen, sailors, and masters of ships and has been considered the Christianized version of the god of the seas: Poseidon.

Dionysios/Bacchus god of wine: Triumphal Chariot (Tunisia) 200 BCE

Merrymaking goes back to the worshipful practices of the priests of Saturnalia and Bacchus (Roll, Susan K. (1995). Toward the Origins of Christmas, Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House. p. 129 has Pope Benedict XIV being the first to roundly defend December 25 as being the birth of the New Testament Jesus). Fernand Cabrol, “Les Origines du Culte catholique. Le Paganisme dans la liturgie” in Revue pratique d’apologétique 3 (1906-1907), pp. 210-211 note 2, and 212, note 3 with page 281 is among many who reject Christmas as being a Christian celebration and as an invention in the seventh century but not crystallized into popular canon until the seventeenth century; cp. Blötzer, Joseph (1907), “Das heidnische Mysterienwesen und die Hellenisierung des Christentums,” in Stimmen aus Maria Laach 72, pp. 41-42). The most frequent use of other religions’ feasts and celebrations was among the Arians, with the established (Constantinian) church incorporating them to battle against Arianism.

It is not before the seventh century, at the earliest, and continues through the nineteenth century, that Christianity has attempted to justify the mythological birth date of Jesus of the New Testament as December 25—which even science reviewing the New Testament accounts reject (Francis Pagi, Breviarium historic-chronologico-criticum, illustriora Pontificum Romanorum Gesta, Conciliorum Geralium acta, vol. 1 (Antwerp, The Netherlands: Van der Hart, 1717), pp. 89-93, cf. Patrologia Latina 128:24-30, under Anastasius, Vitae Romanorum pontificorum.

Christmas Day 1830: Farmer Giles' Establishment (UK)

Nativity scenes do not appear anywhere in any record until the tenth century CE, and homes are not decorated with “green” (shrubs, ivy, decorations, mistletoe (Viscum album) that was originally hung in honor of Nordic gods in petitioning for greater sexual fertility for poor families so that there would be more hands to work, and so forth) until the sixteenth century. Commercially produced adornments/ornaments do not appear until 1860 and then only in Germany. When I was a young man attending St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa, there were no Christmas trees allowed in the church in the 1960s. Father McMullan blasted the practice as pagan. In that the priest was correct, as the tree was adorned in honor of the Nordic god Thor (Allhoff, Fritz; Lowe, Scott C.; and, Nissenbaum, Stephen (2010). Christmas – Philosophy for Everyone: Better than a Lump of Coal. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons). The word “Christmas tree” does not appear in the German language until the eighteenth century, and in English it is first recorded in 1835, brought in and translated by Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III,

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (UK) 1846 Christmas tree

and acculturated by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Christmas tree, grudgingly, is accepted in the USA by the 1870s, and in South America in the twentieth century. Poinsettia doe not appear outside of Mexico until the nineteenth century, and they were a symbol of an ancient pagan god under the name of Cuitlaxochitl and carried to ancient Chile and Peru. It was initially attacked, then held in reverence by Franciscan friars and fathers who saw it as a symbol of the blood of the New Testament Jesus.

Joel Poinsett

The plant was and is used to produce a red dye and an antipyretic medication. When the plant was introduced into the United States in 1825 by Joel Poinsett it took the name of Poinsettia.

Christmas carols (religious music) do not appear in any Christian church or community until the fourth century, and then as a means to popular counter Arianism. It is argued by apologists that Ambrose, archbishop of Milan wrote the first Latin hymn: Veni redemptor gentium. Popular Christian songs do not appear until the thirteenth century and then they were heard only in France, Germany, and Italy. They appear in England in 1426, and were sung by wassailers who went from house to house in quest of food and drink.

Eating special foods, especially pastries and confections do not reappear until the late Middle Ages and then as a means to wean the common people away from a return to pagan Bacchanalia in honor of the god Bacchus whose ministry and celebration included lavish feasts, drunkenness and sexual license. To this end there became the ritual consumption of bûche de Noël in France, panettone in Italy, and panetón in Spain and its conquered nations, especially in South America.

Martin Luther's Christmas tree

Gift giving was always a part of most pagan celebrations, and in the Roman west gift giving was associated with the theology and ritual of the god Saturnalia. It was banned by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages because of its non-Christian origins (it was reinvented by Martin Luther to counter St. Nicholas day, that was actually a Norse legend around the god Odin), but later rationalized in Roman Catholic communities as being a part of the presents to the New Testament infant Jesus by the men who visited him (in bad translations, these men are called magi). While the magi/astrologers were considered wise, it is because they preached an Apocalyptic end of the world since the days of Zoroaster–and the Star that they followed they believed was the light of the End Times (Yasna 30:3-4).

Zurvan emerged as a deified version of the concept of Infinite Time. His name may have been borrowed from an earlier Phoenician deity, and is

Bodleian Ms. J2 fol. 175 Y 28 1: End Times would come with birth of a child

translated as both “fate” and “fortune.” The Zoroastrian god prophesied that there would be those who would cause a great war between two forces: good and evil (Nyayisn, 1.8), both of whom are his sons: Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, the prototypes for Israel and Ishmael, the children of the ancient Hindu god Brahama (Abraham; see the Pahlavi literature including the Denkart (cf. Dresden, Mark Jan (1966). Denkart: a Pahlavi text: facsimile edition of the manuscript B of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute Bombay. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz; the original Pahlavi text, that I am using, was published at Bombay, India: Duftur Ashkara Press, 1874-1928), the Menok-i Xrat (Zaehner, Robert Charles (1955). Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma. Oxford : Clarendon Press; it was reprinted New York, NY, USA: Biblo and Tannen, with a new introduction by the author; multiple languages), and the Selections of Zadspram (a glossary to the ancient text is available from Teheran, Iran: Iranian Culture Foundation, 1973), as these works are a part of what would be generated as Islam and the Qu’ran; they exist in Farsi and Syriac). Far from Christmas being a time of joy and fulfillment, it was to be a time of warfare, hunger, strife initiated by the gods who did not follow the laws of Zoroastrianism. The Eternal War promised has not been realized, and “fate” has not found its destiny. It is truly the “mirror of religion”, the “cloak of ignorance” as prophets foretold as people have rejected old gods and they have vanished along with their apocalyptic visions and promises save for those who continue to follow Sharia Law and the damnation of the individual.